


Tangled up in plaid

by unknown_knowns



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Biting, Breathplay, Choking, Clothed Sex, Dom!Max, Drama, Drinking, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhibitionism, F/F, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Life Is Hard when you have magic powers, Mental Health Acceptance, Mental Health Issues, Mild S&M, Not porn-focused, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Orgy, Pain, Party, Power Exchange, Public Sex, Regret, Role Reversal, S&M, Sad, Scratching, Slice of Life, Stress, Sub!Victoria, Suffering, Teasing, Time Travel, Voyeurism, alternative universe, just there's sex at some point, revolving POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:24:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8270755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknown_knowns/pseuds/unknown_knowns
Summary: When the world ends, Max can't handle her decisions.She was given her powers for a reason.So she used them.Now she just needs to find out what that reason is.Maybe Victoria or Nathan can help her find out, somehow.What do you do when you get everything you've asked for, but it's not like what you imagined?





	1. Rewind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Friends.
> 
> First off, as the tags may imply, this is much darker than some of my other stuff. Don't let the kinky tags fool you; this is not a casual romp or PWP. This is still explicit, and I don't pull any punches in my portrayal of two kinky people in a sexual relationship, but I've cut most of the sex content and kept only what was meaningful and important.
> 
> I wanted to get into the head space of a Max near the end of the game, since I think there's a lot of interesting (albeit quite dark and painful) stories that can be told from there. The game's narrative doesn't allow for too much of that, but oh well. 
> 
> I also wanted to toy with what some of the repercussions might be of a "perfectionist" Max, who uses her powers frequently and excessively to ensure the best possible outcomes always (hence why she can't accept the endings presented to her).
> 
> I should note that a Dom!Max and Sub!Victoria is actually the pairing that is of most interest to me. This is just one of the few ways I could actually see that pairing materializing. 
> 
> As always, I appreciate comments, and will try to read and reply to everyone of them.

Max woke up with a shaky gasp.

She immediately sat up ram-rod straight and compulsively looked around to ensure she was safe.

Her brain didn’t like operating when it literally just woke up but it could fucking deal.

Safe.

She was safe.

She was in her room.

Or it looked like it, anyway.

After a moment’s hesitation to ensure everything was calm, Max groaned and rubbed at the back of her neck.

She leaned forward under the weight of everything.

Her body felt stiff all over, and there was a persistent ache in her head.

An annoying pressure behind her eyes.

It felt like she hadn’t slept in a week, yet she clearly just woke up.

But she knew what this was.

This was another side-effect of her time jumping and manipulation.

Carefully, Max scooted her body over to the edge of the bed and sat on it.

She placed her feet on the ground and looked down at herself.

She was still dressed.

She didn’t even sleep under the covers.

But these weren’t her clothes.

Or at least, these weren’t her clothes, at the start of the week.

At some point in time, these belonged to Rachel.

However long ago that was in actuality felt even longer now.

She patted herself down to find where her phone was.

She checked her texts.

Chloe was upset at her.

Nothing else very interesting.

Max frowned, put her phone down, and tried to figure out when exactly she was, right now.

Her brain protested, but it was already aching and sore, and forcing it into a bit more action would add only a little bit more agony onto the pile.

Max’s memory was … confusing, these days.

At some point, she had discovered that she could jump into specific points of time through particular photos that she had some measure of emotional connection towards.

At some point, she had stared into the abyss of the storm that was coming to the town, and shouted at the heavens at the miserable unfairness of her situation.

At some point, something in Max snapped, and she simply refused to accept the choices that the world presented to her.

The universe gave her these stupid powers for a reason.

So she used them.

She rewound and rewound.

And rewound.

And rewound.

She did it long past she felt her nose bleeding and her world blurring.

She did it long past she couldn’t feel her body or see where she really was.

She did it until her world was white and quiet and peaceful and there was nothing at all.

Past that point, Max was unsure of what really happened.

 

But she was here now.

So she must have survived that great rewind.

Or maybe she didn’t, and her afterlife was some kind of fucked-up version of _Groundhog Day_ , forever forced to replay the various permutations of Max’s life until she found the right one and did the right things.

She knew she did a lot of photo jumping.

She found new photos that she had connections to all of the time, thanks to her proclivity for taking selfies in particular and photos in general.

But the rules of photo jumping were different from the rules of rewinding.

They were more confusing, and seemingly mercurial.

The only consistent factor was that she remembered everything that happened in every photo jump.

Not just while she was living in the photo.

She remembered the entire life of the Max she had occupied and displaced.

It was a disquieting, confusing, disassociating experience.

She had so many conflicting memories of the same events.

She remembered kissing Chloe. More than once.

But she also remembered kissing Victoria. More than once.

She was pretty sure she even kissed Warren and Kate once or twice.

Sometimes, she was popular.

Sometimes, she was an abject loser.

Most of the times, she was somewhere in the middle.

Max didn’t like photo jumping much, anymore.

But sometimes she felt compelled to do it, if she thought it might give her an opportunity for things to be different.

She was pretty sure this is actually what being insane felt like.

Who was she even more, even?

The Max that started this week off wouldn’t dream of wearing clothes like these.

She would have never made a move on Chloe.

She would have never have been friends with anyone in the Vortex club.

She would have never been able to stop Jefferson.

Max remembered the Dark Room too, in tremendous relief.

But there were more parts of her that were innocent to it than exposed to it.

The where and when of it was easier to forget.

Easier to be numb to.

Just like with the storm.

Cognitively, she knew she should be freaking out right now about trying to reconnect with Chloe and worry about the storm about to take out the town in… a day or two.

But she couldn’t muster the energy to really worry that much.

These stupid fucking powers had removed the ability to _feel_ the severity of the Dark Room and the storm.

They were just abstract concerns.

Distant goals to eventually resolve in some particular way that made the gods happy.

If she failed yet again, she’d just find another photo or try to rewind until she couldn’t anymore.

She’d keep trying until she fixed everything, or ended up killing herself, somehow.

She was determined.

Yet, Max didn’t even know what she wanted to do, now.

This determination was on a comic scale.

The particulars of what she needed to do to correct the world were always a bit more fuzzy.

Maybe she would see how her relationships with everyone else was, in this universe.

She’d ended up slumping over her bed, just staring miserably at the ground in her deep concentrated thought.

So she stood up, and found her phone again.

She put it in her jeans pocket.

Numbly, she made her way out of her room.

 

Victoria was in the hall.

She was tearing into some else – a face Max didn’t recognize, which was an impressive feat in of itself.

Max felt the need to give the pour soul an out and teach Victoria a lesson.

One of the other disquieting things about Max’s current predicament is she was simultaneously overran by the reactions that All of the Maxes had to Victoria.

She felt fear. Anger. Attraction. Superiority. Compassion.

She remembered all of the times that Victoria had mocked her.

And all of the times that Victoria had moaned her name.

Max felt like she could play everyone like a fucking video game, now.

So that’s what she decided to do.

She decided to test how familiar _this_ Victoria was with her.

She came up right behind her.

“’Tori.”

Shit.

Max’s voice felt dry and cracked.

She should have probably bothered to see if she was hungry or thirsty, first.

But she had gotten so good at ignoring her body’s needs just so she could continue chasing her goal.

Ignoring the fatigue. The anguish. The stress. The sorrow. The guilt.

She didn’t really need water, right now.

“ _What did you ---_ “

Max rewound.

This Victoria was not that comfortable with her.

That voice was spine-y and combative.

She tried a different approach this time.

Maybe this was one of the timelines where they just had random, drunken sex, and didn’t really talk to one another.

She’d be more receptive to a direct challenge to her authority, if so.

Max _thought_ that was the trigger for that pattern of behavior, anyway.

Victoria was a confusing person, sometimes.

Max still came up behind Victoria, in this attempt.

This time, she got close, and breathed down the back of Victoria’s neck in a very intentional way.

The way that she knew Victoria liked.

The way only her lovers really would.

Victoria shivered and stammered, clearly unbalanced.

Maybe this was a closer interpretation to who they were in this universe.

Max numbly pulled away from behind Victoria and moved to her front.

Victoria had started to turn her face around in one direction, so after a rewind, Max ducked around in the opposite direction.

“Please leave now.”

Max said, calmly and evenly, to the unknown face that was being tortured.

The person thanked her and quickly scuttled away.

When Max turned around to face Victoria, Victoria was still in utter shock at what had just happened.

She tried, and failed, to start a sentence a few times.

“W-What … what the …”

Her hands had been on her own sides when she was demeaning the unknown face.

Max stepped closer and effortlessly grasped at Victoria’s wrists.

She rewound until she knew the exact direction and manner Victoria would recoil them so as to still manage to grasp at them cleanly.

Victoria’s compulsive reaction of,

“Don’t touch ---“

Was short-circuited by Max’s nails digging into her wrists.

Instead, Victoria’s eyes went wide, and her next breath came out too loud and too shaky.

Max grinned wide.

“I just did. Who knows what I’ll do if I see you bullying someone again. _Au revoir_.”

It took a rewind for Max to get the delivery just right.

Max released Victoria’s wrists and turned on her heel to leave her hall way.

That felt like it went well.

Max being able to rewind until everything went just perfectly did wonders for her confidence.

Victoria needed someone to show her what a fucking bitch she was, sometimes.

On the way out, she frowned when she saw Kate’s door.

She didn’t survive, in this time line.

Damn it.

Max couldn’t dwell on it, though.

Max still needed to find Warren, and see how pissed off Chloe really was at her, right now.

She ignored any of Victoria’s words as she made out of the hall way.

They weren’t really important, right now.

\---

Victoria had never been so confused before in her life.

Max had just come up behind her.

Max had breathed down her neck in the worst possible fucking way that sent her thoughts in the absolute wrong direction.

Max seemed to know exactly which way Victoria was going to look to accost whoever had violated her personal space, and simply went around her in the opposite direction.

Max knew what to say to make the idiot she was bullying calm down and leave.

By the time Victoria turned back around, her victim had already scuttled off.

Then Max just fucking turns around, perfectly finds her wrists, and knows how to dig into her skin and exploit something that fucking _no one_ knew about.

And then Max pleasantly taunts her and leaves, ignoring Victoria calling her name.

Max acted so perfectly.

She knew exactly what to do for every second of their interactions.

She knew exactly how to phrase things perfectly to unbalance Victoria.

She knew exactly when to intervene to help save some idiot that had offended Victoria.

There was only one other time Victoria remembered someone being so utterly fucking perfect.

Rachel.

What the fuck had gotten into Max?

Was it the clothes?

Fucking magic clothes?

Those were definitely Rachel’s clothes.

Victoria wasn’t going to ever forget them, and Rachel’s fucking stupid grinning face in them.

Max sure looked better in them, at least.

Better than that stupid boring hoodie and pathetic mom jeans.

Victoria just groaned and put her hand on her forehead to rub at it.

She closed her eyes.

This was just going to … severely complicate things.

A perfect Max that had the balls to stand up to Victoria could change the fucking world if she wanted to.

Victoria decided to go back into her room.

It wasn’t going to do her any good to just stand dumbly in the hall ways.

Maybe Max was just lucky, that one time.

Victoria wouldn’t be caught off-guard a second time.

But she still texted Max, because seriously.

 _What the fuck._ _We need to talk._

A reply came back quickly.

_Not with those manners._

No emojis.

Victoria bit her lip.

She almost responded more politely, but then stopped herself halfway through and just cursed.

Like she was going to be polite to Max fucking Caulfield.

She put her phone away, instead.

This wasn’t the Max that she knew.

The Max she knew was docile and passive.

If Victoria asked her to jump, she’d ask how high, with a dumb smile on her face.

All too happy to receive when Victoria was drunk.

All too pathetic to even dare to use Victoria’s vulnerabilities at night as leverage.

Easily manipulated, malleable.

Did Victoria do this to her?

Did being so cold and heartlessly exploitive of her weaknesses cause something to snap in Max?

Was this the revenge the universe had lined up for her being such a fucking manipulative bitch to Max?

Or was Max just playing her, all along?

Building up a glossary of Victoria’s little weaknesses here and there?

Victoria didn’t really know what all she said when she was drunk.

She knew she had called Max cute more than once.

But she never really remembered what else, or what they did at night.

Victoria imagined sex was probably involved with the way Max blushed.

The thought that _Victoria_ was the one being played all along just made her nervous as can be.

Max could ruin Victoria’s reputation overnight, with what she knew.

Fuck.

Victoria sighed severely.

She had ended up pacing, nervously.

She was probably over-thinking this.

Max had just gotten lucky.

She was probably just feeling a bit bold and confident with Rachel’s clothes on.

Since, well, she did look pretty hot with them on.

Victoria sat down at her desk and tried to study some course work.

She’d just worry herself into a dangerous knot if she kept thinking about the implications of all of this.

She needed to do her best to put Max out of her thoughts.

And avoid drinking too much for a little while.

\---

Max decided that the Max in this timeline was a fucking idiot.

Chloe was _really_ upset. This Max had not done nearly enough to appease her, yet also apparently not enough to keep Kate alive, either.

After their conversation became tense and accusative, Chloe hung up their call and refused to respond to Max’s texts or much else.

Max sighed severely.

She’d ended up outside.

On the steps leading out of the dorm.

She had been sitting down, hunched over with her weight being supported by her arms on her knees.

She just put her phone down on the ground and grumbled miserably.

This timeline seemed pretty fucked.

What the hell did she do to get into this one?

She didn’t even have Warren’s number in her phone, and when she tried to talk to him, he just blew her off.

That wasn’t like Warren.

She tried to remember and think like This Max.

To really understand what was going on, here.

But her memories were too complicated and nuanced.

There were too many threads and too many pieces.

Warren not even liking her was exceptionally unusual, but not enough for her to remember in greater detail what This Max knew.

Max was so deep in her concentration, she didn’t even notice when someone sat down next to her.

“You’re freakin’ out Vic.”

Max blinked.

That was Nathan’s voice.

She peered over at him.

She could never really read his expressions or his faces.

At some point, she stopped being afraid or intimidated by either him or Victoria.

She didn’t know if she _should_ be in this timeline.

What his involvement with Jefferson was, at this point.

If he felt regret, yet.

“Let her be freaked out.”

Max responded, dryly, distantly.

Her voice still sounded cracked and she hated it.

Nathan laughed.

He seemed impressed by Max’s cavalier attitude.

“Look at the balls on you, lady. _Now_ I see what Vic was after.”

He hesitated for a few moments.

“Here. Drink this. You look like shit.”

He looked down at his bottle of beer, and extended his hand. Offering it.

Max considered if she could trust him enough to take it.

He _had_ been drinking it just a few seconds ago.

It probably wasn’t laced with anything if he was imbibing it himself.

“Don’t tell me you’re a straight-edge. That’d just be too cute.”

Max took the offered drink and finished off the bottle.

“No.”

Her voice sounded better, now.

Max knew alcohol was not a replacement for water, but she also knew that alcohol was good at making her not worry about that.

“Good. I’ll go tell Vic to stop over-reacting.”

She didn’t miss the slight smile in his face as he got up and left.

Max looked down to the beer bottle.

Unlabeled.

Uninteresting.

It was stronger than the stuff she drank whenever she was around Victoria, or sometimes Chloe.

It tasted awful.

But beer never tasted good to her.

She knew that wasn’t the point of it.

The point of it was the subtle release from the ache behind her eyes.

The point of it was the ability to breathe easily for once, since she had woken up.

The point of it was to forget.

She left the bottle on the steps of the stairs.

She wasn’t supposed to be drinking on campus, obviously, and there weren’t receptacles set up for handling recycling of this material.

Or maybe that’s just what she told herself for why she didn’t even bother to look.

This world was different.

She was closer to Victoria’s circle than she had been in a long time.

Maybe that’s why Kate was dead, Chloe was pissed off at her, and Warren didn’t like her.

Maybe in this world, she was a Vortex Club groupie.

She might have even helped with the video that tipped Kate over the edge.

Maybe in this world, she wasn’t a nice person.

She could let Chloe be angry in this world and see what was going on.

She’d just rewind or something, later.

Knowing more about Nathan, in particular, could be useful in later time lines.

She had a perfect opportunity some time ago when she was last a Vortex Club member, but.

She was so busy freaking out and focusing on Chloe then, she didn’t use it to really collect much useful information.

That wasn’t a mistake she’d repeat twice.

These timelines were rare, and the information was precious.

The information would be especially helpful when she got in a timeline that was less fucked.

She’d start with Victoria.

Max had to know what they were, here.

If Victoria really had been sleeping with her, or they were nothing at all.

Then she’d see how much Nathan was willing to tell her.

Max made her way to Victoria’s room and knocked on the door.

\---

Someone was knocking on Victoria’s door.

It was probably Nathan.

He was here just a few minutes ago, rolling his eyes over the way she was reacting to Max suddenly having a pair.

He gently reminded her that she kind of always wanted a pissed-off Max that didn’t deal with her shit.

She hated him for that.

He just laughed, then, and said he wanted to meet this new Not Max that had a spine.

And he was probably coming back, now, to tell her how they should definitely be a thing.

“It’s open.”

She said back to the door.

Someone entered and closed the door behind them.

Victoria didn’t even look up from her computer.

“I told you, Max isn’t different, isn’t she?”

Silence.

Victoria blinked.

If this was Nathan, he would have already crashed on her couch by now.

She turned around on her chair and her jaw basically dropped.

It was Max.

_Fuck._

Her arms were crossed.

There was a kind of severe look on her face that Victoria totally wasn’t familiar with.

She was still in Rachel’s fucking clothes and that hadn’t gotten any less hot.

“Uh. M-max.”

Victoria stood up.

She wasn’t sure why her voice came out a little nervous and uneven.

It was bullshit.

She could do whatever she wanted to Max.

 _She_ was the one in control of this relationship.

“What have you been telling people about me behind my back?”

Max didn’t trip over her words, once.

The delivery was just right.

She kept perfect eye contact.

Her words were demanding, and her tone was just as harsh as her face.

This Not Max was kind of intimidating.

It continued to unbalance Victoria, even if only because it was so unexpected coming from Max, of all people.

_She’ll see right through you. Just like Rachel._

Victoria sighed, crossed her arms in turn, and steeled her voice.

She wasn’t about to let a pissy Max ruin everything about her in one afternoon.

Her face became a stone, comfortable and relaxing in its suffocating burden on others.

She was Victoria Chase.

She owned this school.

She could handle Max all day long.

“Nothing that anyone with a fucking pair of eyes can’t see. You’re being fucking weird, Max.”

_She won’t believe you._

Max took a step or two closer.

“Victoria.”

Victoria continued.

“And now you just barge into my room and start demanding questions out of me like ---“

_She’s not buying it._

Max took a few steps closer.

“ _Victoria_.”

“Fucking _what_ , loser?”

_She’s not afraid of you._

Max wasn’t.

She was basically right in front of Victoria now, and didn’t flinch an inch when Victoria’s gaze became intense and heavy.

“What are we? What is this thing between us?”

Victoria blinked.

There was _no fucking way_ Her Max would have the nerve to say that.

Not Max here didn’t even hesitate in piercing Victoria with the question.

Victoria didn’t even realize her arms had come uncrossed and were down by her sides until Max secured her hands and interlocked them.

Her instinct was to pull away, but.

That part of her died off when Max squeezed.

That part of her didn’t know what to do when Max used the grip to tug Victoria closer.

That part of her was scared about what had happened to Max.

_She sees right through you._

Victoria could feel pieces of herself starting to crack.

“I …”

She was speechless.

She didn’t know how to handle an assertive Max that initiated contact and knew how to progress forward with it.

“I don’t know.”

Victoria blurted out, honestly.

She looked away, somewhere.

Down the floor, probably.

Max shoved her over to the bed.

Victoria gave a surprised yelp.

But she ended up on the bed, all the same.

She at least ended up sitting and not lying flat like some kind of fucking whore.

“How about we find out, then?”

But Victoria wasn’t sure of herself when she looked back to up to Max.

“Max…”

Victoria’s words sounded distant, now.

She only belatedly recognized the stench of alcohol.

_She only likes you when she’s drunk or you’re drunk._

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

Victoria cursed how gentle and concerned her voice sounded.

She wanted it to be spiny and angry and aggressive.

Max flinched, then shrugged.

“Does it matter? I’m here now. I want you. You want me.”

Victoria bit her lip.

It kind of _did_ fucking matter, thank you very much.

But she didn’t resist when Max sat down next to her.

She didn’t resist when Max interlocked their fingers again.

She didn’t resist when Max pushed her down onto her back, like some kind of fucking whore.

She didn’t resist when Max kissed her.

She didn’t know why.

Max was just paralyzing that part of her, or something.

_You don’t deserve someone who is gentle to you._

Victoria shivered.

As if on cue, Max’s fingers broke away from Victoria’s hands to rake her nails along her wrists, instead.

Victoria didn’t stop the shaky moan that it earned out of her.

Since this Not Max probably knew exactly the effect it had on her, anyway.

She didn’t resist when her hands were raised up above her head, either.

Since this Not Max probably knew this was all an act.

And that Victoria didn’t really want to be the one in control of the relationship.

“W-wait.”

Victoria stammered, as Max’s mouth started to move a bit lower.

_She won’t listen to you. She’s just going to use you and throw you away. Just like you deserve._

For her part, Max cared at least enough to hesitate.

Victoria’s eyes had closed at some point, and she didn’t care to open them, again.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Victoria shivered again.

_She sees right through you. Just like Rachel._

She did nod mutely, but then shook her head.

“Yes, no. No, wait. Yes, but. It’s just --- _ugh_.”

Victoria breathed in deep.

Her fucking anxieties wouldn’t even let her enjoy getting laid, if she didn’t know.

“Max. Whatever it is that’s gotten into you … it isn’t revenge, isn’t it? You’re not going to just …”

Victoria trailed off.

She wasn’t really sure what she was more worried about, anymore.

Max ruining her reputation, or Max not really caring.

Max manipulating her like she manipulated Max.

“Hey.”

Victoria opened her eyes.

Max had softened up.

Her hands were still pinning Victoria’s above her head, but at least the claws were away for now.

Her face was soft.

It wasn’t the stern look she had used to let Victoria know she wasn’t going to put up with her shit right now.

“No. It’s not. And it’s never been _me_ who was pushing us apart.”

_Fuck._

That hurt.

But Victoria deserved that.

She was the asshole, here.

Victoria sniffled without really meaning to.

Max kissed her again, and it was gentle.

It was nice.

Victoria didn’t deserve someone who was that gentle to her.

She deserved someone who spat her name, who slapped her, who forced her down on the bed, and then just left her to deal with the aftermath.

Victoria wasn’t a nice person.

But maybe that didn’t matter to Max.

Maybe that didn’t matter to this Not Max, either.

When Max’s claws came back out again and she felt teeth, Victoria didn’t resist.

And gave them both the eager sounds of enjoyment that they both wanted to hear.

 

Victoria woke up in the middle of the night.

Anxious and jittery.

Nightmare, or something.

But Max was still there, wrapped around her.

It was enough.

Victoria sighed severely.

This wasn’t revenge.

She didn’t know what it was, anymore, but this wasn’t revenge.

Victoria didn’t really know if she even deserved a Max like this one.

But she wasn’t going to complain.

She went back to sleep.

She slept peacefully, somehow.

 

Victoria woke up that morning stiff all over.

Her eyes immediately shot open.

Max wasn’t there.

_She doesn’t care for you. She just used you._

Victoria shouldn’t have been surprised.

It didn’t stop her from groaning miserably, though.

She almost wanted to just stay here for a while longer to wallow in misery and pity about how Max was _definitely_ fucking using her and _definitely_ going to manipulate her.

But other parts of her forced her into moving before her spiral could get too steep.

She peeled herself out of her bed and ---

Max’s phone was still on her night stand.

She raised an eyebrow and stopped dead in her tracks.

Well.

At least she could stop freaking out about being abandoned or betrayed.

Max wouldn’t leave her phone there if she didn’t trust Victoria not to fuck with it.

She had to have been nearby, still.

After a few further moments of processing, Victoria just sighed and finished standing up out of the bed.

She patted herself down.

She hadn’t gotten undressed last night; her clothes just got disheveled and pushed around.

Max’s fingers knew how to go underneath them.

They had gotten sweaty and sticky, last night.

Her clothes felt dirty, now.

She went to her closet to pick out the clothes for today.

She was almost done by the time her door opened up again and closed behind her.

She looked back to see Max.

Victoria bit her lip, but went back to picking out clothes.

“Max.”

Max hesitated.

“You’re awake.”

Victoria scoffed and rolled her eyes.

A terrible part of her worked automatically and didn’t require much conscious thought, at this point. It was comfortable.

_Skewer her._

“I’m glad your eyes are still working. Have any other insightful discoveries to share?”

Max just groaned.

But another part of Victoria was there, too, and it protested. It wasn’t really the person she wanted to be to either Max or Not Max.

_No, what the fuck is wrong with you. You literally just had sex and freaked out about her not being there. You care. Can’t you be nice for once?_

“Is that how this is going to be?”

Max’s voice sounded a little miserable.

It should have.

Victoria hesitated.

She really didn’t know.

She turned around.

“I don’t know, Max. I just …”

She closed her eyes, and breathed in deep.

Max already knew a lot of her vulnerabilities.

And so far, she hadn’t exploited them to hurt Victoria.

She could know a bit more.

“I’m just nervous, I guess. You’re …”

She frowned.

“You’re different, somehow, and it’s really fucking worrying me.”

Max nodded carefully.

But she crossed her arms.

“People change.”

Victoria bit her lip again.

That was a dodge.

Max wasn’t fucking telling her something and it reminded her too much of how this all went down with Rachel.

Rachel fucking knew every god damn thing and just teased Victoria about how little she knew in comparison.

Victoria was getting fucking pissed just thinking about it.

She crossed her arms and dug her nails into her own skin.

It hurt.

Good.

“Fucking _bullshit_. You’re lying to me.”

Max flinched.

Max then just sighed loudly.

She uncrossed her arms, looked up to the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

Victoria tapped her foot impatiently.

Max eventually looked back down.

Her face was softer again.

“Yeah. I am. But I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you the truth.”

Victoria blinked.

“Um. What?”

Max went over to get her phone and check it for messages.

When it was back in her pocket, she turned to face Victoria, again.

“It’s a really long story and I don’t know how much I can explain on a Friday. Or how much you’ll believe. Where’s Nathan?”

Victoria blinked again.

“I don’t know, probably getting ready for the party somewhere?”

Max sighed and closed her eyes.

“Can we walk and talk and find him?”

Victoria frowned.

Max still acting fucking bizarre wasn’t helping her anxieties one bit.

“Are you just using me to get to Nathan?”

Max’s eyes shot wide open.

At least she had the decency looked offended at the suggestion.

“ _No_.”

And her words were forceful.

“No. That’s not it _at all_. Look.”

Max sighed, raised her hands up to her face, and dragged them down with severe pressure.

Victoria went back to picking out clothes.

“I know I have been acting strange. If you want to know why, I need you to absolutely trust me and believe whatever it is I say.”

Victoria just rolled her eyes.

Maybe she deserved a lover who was as dramatic as she was.

Not like the fucking world was ending or something.

“Fine, whatever. Just tell me what it is and we’ll find Nathan. Don’t know what he’d talk to _you_ about, though.”

When she had her clothes picked out, and she carefully laid them out on the bed, she turned to face Max.

Max was still standing by her night stand.

But her posture was more nervous, this time.

Her arms were half-crossed. One of them was across her chest, the other was up by her chin and cheek, supporting her face.

She was looking out Victoria’s window.

Victoria did too, for a few seconds, but saw nothing interesting out there.

She was probably just spacing out.

“So.”

Victoria tried to carefully remove Max from her distant spacing with the gentle words.

Max turned to her.

She looked worried.

Victoria continued,

“What the _fuck_ is going on? You’re not the Max I know. My Max doesn’t know about … any of the shit you did last night. _No one_ knows about that stuff. But _you_.”

Victoria was thoughtlessly pulling off her own clothes and changing into the new ones.

Being naked around Max was the least of her worries right now, and it gave her something to distract herself from over-thinking her words.

Max sighed.

“Because I’m not her. Not really. Not entirely.”

This gave Victoria pause.

She carefully looked to Max.

“What, are you a doppelgänger or something?”

Max shook her head.

“No. Okay. Look. I’m Max from another universe.”

Victoria scoffed.

She opened her mouth to say something, but ---

“And you’re about to make a wry joke about how this isn’t a TV show or something and that wouldn’t even make for a good lifetime movie.”

Victoria blinked.

She felt some of the color drain out of her face.

“Then you’re going to accuse me of reading your mind and start thinking about the most vulgar things you can to try and get me out of there.”

Victoria carefully finished putting on her top, and then very slowly looked over to Max.

Victoria was expecting a Max with a huge shit-eating grin or something.

She wasn’t expecting an exhausted-looking Max with the world visibly on her shoulders and distance in her eyes.

“And for the record, no, I’m not. I control time. So I’ve had this conversation already like 20 times, and I’m just …”

She sighed severely and looked down to the floor.

“I’m tired of trying to find the right things to say that would make you believe me. It always just ends with you running out the door. Even if you think I’m insane, can you just … please, humor me?”

Victoria bit her lip.

There was _so much_ pain in Max’s voice.

It reminded her of Nathan.

When all of the stress in the world just got too much for him to bear, and he ran out of ways to phrase the need for him to relax in her room for a while.

Even when everyone called him crazy, she was always there for him.

Victoria slowly looked down to the edge of her bed.

Max was asking an awful lot of her.

Victoria sighed and went back to changing clothes.

“So … My Max is dead, then?”

She sat down to start changing her lower clothes.

Max shook her head.

“Not … really. She’s in here, somewhere, I just … All of them, from all of the timelines, are in here. Ones where …”

Max hesitated for a little while.

Victoria didn’t mind.

This was healing.

“Ones where we’re more than this, ones where we’re less than this, ones where we’re nothing at all. I experience all of them, simultaneously.”

At least that explained why Max knew what Victoria liked when not even Her Max knew.

“Sounds stressful.”

Victoria said it without even really thinking, as a kind of way to just advance the conversation and keep Max believing that she was paying attention.

But she heard a whimper from Max out of it.

Victoria blinked and carefully looked up to her again, to see that she had tightly closed her eyes.

Her chest was rising and falling rapidly.

She was trying to hold back tears.

“Y-yeah …”

_Fuck._

Victoria _did not_ want to make Max cry.

So she stood up, suddenly not caring about whatever state of dress she was in right now, and marched over to Max to tightly wrap her arms around in a compressing hug.

“I-I don’t want to cry, I should be over this, but fucking _no one_ believes me, not really, and I’ve-tried-so-much-and---”

“Shh.”

Victoria cut her off, since Max’s voice was quickly pitching up and becoming too uneven and quick.

Victoria ran a hand up to stoke along Max’s hair.

Max just sighed gently and melted in her arms.

They just stood there, like that, for a long time.

It was nice.

Victoria didn’t really know how much she could believe.

She felt a little distant and woozy right now, and associated the feeling with shock.

But she fucking knew when someone needed a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen to them.

Just no one deserved that kindness from her.

Except Nathan.

And Max.

Max mumbled about needing to see Nathan soon.

That was okay.

They could see him later.

She needed to calm down first.

And Victoria didn’t mind if that took a while, right now.


	2. Pause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max contemplates her relationships.
> 
> Max learns more about this universe.
> 
> Max's eyes roll into the back of her head.
> 
> Somewhere, a terrible fucking song is playing.

Max wasn’t really sure how long she spent in Victoria’s arms.

It had just been so long.

So very very long.

Since she had just stopped for a few moments.

Without chasing her goals.

Without ignoring her own needs.

Without dealing with a burden far beyond what teenage girl should have to carry.

When they eventually separated, Max felt more at ease with everything.

She gently ran a nail along her arm to ensure that she wasn’t dreaming.

And that she wasn’t about to wake up in her bed, all alone, again.

Victoria said she wanted to get something before they found Nathan.

So there was nothing to distress her as Max just enjoyed the feeling of her nails against the skin of her own arm.

It was a reminder that she was alive.

That she was here.

That she was still managing to fight.

And still managing to find some world where everything wasn’t totally fucked.

And her options in life weren’t miserably unfair.

Afterwards, she carefully looked outside Victoria’s window, again.

She thought about the conversations she had with her other friends about her powers, in other time lines.

Warren and Chloe basically had the same reaction.

They were both incredulous at first, but immediately believed her after she used her powers to predict some events.

And then they both wanted her to use her powers for very silly, irresponsible things.

Warren in particular wanted to know what it was like to be able to set off small bombs and just rewind, to not have to deal with the consequences.

Warren urged some caution in over-using her powers, but it felt kind of hypocritical when he was thinking of using them for even more silly things.

Chloe mostly thought of petty theft and crime, like tagging. But she also thought of more scandalizing things. Embarrassing her enemies and people she thought who deserved it.

But Max knew that when Chloe said all of these things, she was really thinking of rewinding until she could see Rachel again.

Rewinding until her life was better and easier, again.

And probably doing it again and again for as long as she could until she either died of old age or her powers ran out.

She was just projecting something tough and macho so she didn’t have to _feel_.

Max was never really sure what all went on between them – the conversation was just simply too painful for Chloe – but she knew Chloe didn’t feel about her like she did Rachel. Even when they kissed, Max felt like a replacement for Rachel, not a genuine connection on her own.

Max didn’t know if she was being entirely unfair to Chloe about all of this, but she couldn’t help her feelings any more than Chloe could help hers.

Kate, for her part, couldn’t believe it. She had difficulty squaring what was, essentially, straight-up magic, with her belief in a higher power. Max kind of thought that’s where her powers came from, anyway, but Kate was incessant that that wasn’t how things worked.

She never believed, but she tried.

Kate always tried. As long as she had faith.

Out of all of her friends, Victoria was the only one who seemed concerned about the impact it had on Max herself.

She was the only one who had thought maybe, just maybe, being a literal time wizard wasn’t the best thing in the world.

She was the only one who didn’t immediately start asking her to do more stupid things to prove her powers.

And Max couldn’t figure out why.

She knew Chloe cared for her.

She was sure Kate and Warren did, too.

In fact, if Max had to pick one person in the school who probably _didn’t_ care that much for her, it’d have to be someone in Victoria’s circle, if not Victoria herself.

Yet Victoria was the only one who pierced Max’s professional stupor over the whole time travel nonsense.

She was the only one that had Max really thinking about what she was doing, again.

She put a hole in the emotional dam Max had built around the whole sordid affair.

Max rubbed at her own arm.

What _was_ she doing?

She manipulated Victoria’s weaknesses several times, yesterday.

She played her like a video game.

For Max’s own need to feel close to someone, again.

To have someone say her name, like that.

To fall asleep in a lover’s embrace, and wake up in one.

Is that what a good person did?

Did the ends justify the means?

Would her conscious be clear if she finally ended up in stable universe where there was no storm and Chloe was still alive?

Max felt a worried pit grow in her stomach.

Since she knew what the answer was.

She’s always known what the answer was.

And she didn’t like it, one bit.

 

Max didn’t notice Victoria coming back into her room, however much later it was.

She did notice Victoria grapping her by the shoulder, turning her around, and placing a water bottle in one of her hands.

“Drink.”

Max blinked, and looked down to the water bottle.

“I’m not a child, Vi ---“

Victoria wasn’t having it, though.

“ _Drink._ ”

She looked expectantly at Max until Max sighed and relented, twisting off the top and drinking.

She didn’t realize just how thirsty she was until the fresh water hit her tongue.

She consumed the entire bottle in one go.

And afterwards, she felt breathless and uneven.

She was breathing far too quickly and couldn’t control it.

Her eyes were wide.

She raised a hand up to rub at her own face.

Victoria gently patted at her back.

“You were drinking last night and you didn’t have any water. You can’t just do that, Max.”

Max nodded carefully, still trying to steady her breathing.

But it didn’t take too long to do that.

Her body just suddenly felt another level of _alive_ when it had some fresh water in her.

It had given up on that particular hope.

Max was just planning to ride it out and jump into another Max, soon.

Since this universe was fucked, and all.

It got a little too excited when its needs were finally met.

Max sniffed and gave one final harsh exhale before standing up straight again and calming her breathing.

“Thanks. I guess.”

Victoria nodded.

“I swear to god Max, you remind me of Nathan, sometimes. I’m pretty sure he would have died by now if I didn’t keep feeding him water.”

Her voice was quiet, and gentle.

Concerned.

Max blinked.

That’s why Victoria cared, earlier.

Victoria recognized something was wrong in Max, now.

And she felt sympathy.

She could see the denial and the pain being built up.

Since she had been spending so long dealing and caring for another person like that.

Max smiled sweetly at the thought.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing I have you around, then.”

Victoria smiled too, and sighed wistfully.

Her arms were crossed.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

They had a quiet moment to just enjoy that thought.

Then,

“Come on. Nathan’s getting ready pool area. He’s just _dying_ to know what you could want to talk to him about.”

Max kept the water bottle and made a point of recycling, much to Victoria’s eye-rolling, as they made their way over to the pool area where the party would be set up.

 

Max wasn’t really sure what she was expecting it to look like, in this universe.

But it looked an awful like it did from all her previous times here.

Just a bit more in relief, now that it was still day time.

All of the conflicting memories were overwhelming, again.

Anger. Concern. Frustration. Fear. Empathy.

Max had to focus.

She didn’t know how much time she had left.

No time for a pity party, right now.

Max looked around the area as she walked with Victoria.

They had a special tarp over the pool to make set up of the rest of the scene easier.

There was a surprising number of people helping to set up everything.

Max recognized a lot of them as casual friends of Vortex Club members.

Maybe if they were good enough and kissed enough ass, they could be promoted to a full member.

On the way to the middle of the scene, Max carefully intertwined her fingers with Victoria’s.

She was surprised that Victoria didn’t seem to have much shame about it.

She squeezed the hand.

Max whispered so only Victoria would be privy.

There was enough hustle and bustle around that this was almost unnecessary, but still.

Max wasn’t entirely sure how comfortable they were to be seen in public.

“So um. Am I a Vortex Club member?”

Victoria gave Max a sidelong look.

Then she sighed, remembering herself.

She squeezed Max’s hand back.

“Yes. Since almost the start of the year, actually. You hit on me during a party and Nathan found it _so_ amusing he just had to have you around.”

Max furrowed her brow.

She looked back forward.

She was overwhelmed with a memory.

\---

Max was wet and miserable.

No matter how tightly she clutched to herself with this stupid windbreaker, it felt like the rain was getting everywhere, anyway.

She had failed.

The storm was coming.

She had just gotten out of the dark room.

Chloe was dead.

But so was Mr. Jefferson.

It was of little consolation, though.

Max’s fingers hadn’t let go of Chloe’s necklace since she swiped it from the dark room.

She couldn’t drive this stupid car any faster.

She knew what she needed to do.

She got back to Blackwell.

She put on Chloe’s necklace.

And she made her way back to her own room.

The rain continued to get everywhere.

The wind almost knocked her down, several times.

The power was out.

Everyone was panicking and trying to flee.

It felt like some kind of nightmare scenario.

But she had her phone.

She used it for light as she made it into her dormitory.

She carefully made her way up the steps and closed the stair access door behind her.

Everything was so much quieter, in here.

She just paused for a few moments.

She could appreciate the severity of her own breathing.

She was breathing so hard from her physical exertion and stress that she couldn’t even keep standing up straight.

Her breathing was deep, and guttural, it necessitated the entire movement of her upper-body to keep it going.

She ran her fingers along one of the bullets on Chloe’s three bullet necklace.

She carefully listened to the drip drop of rain water off of her clothes.

She heard the almost distant whistling of the storm’s winds outside.

The groaning of the building in ways it really shouldn’t.

This wasn’t a safe place to be.

But that was okay.

She had a job to do.

Max carefully pushed herself forward.

She was so close, now.

She made it into her room, and immediately ransacked it, looking for a particular box of old photos.

Max didn’t know how many times she had failed like this, now.

It was never getting any easier.

Every time she used her powers to prevent Chloe’s death directly, everything got fucked by this stupid storm.

Every time Chloe found out about Rachel’s apparent infidelity and death, she became consumed with rage, and ended up being tricked by Mr. Jefferson. Goaded into her grave.

She had to try something different.

She had to do a drastic photo jump.

She promised to herself she’d never do this, again.

Not since she realized the impact it was having on her mind.

Not since she saw the concern in Chloe’s face when Max acted different.

When she knew, somehow, that this Max wasn’t hers.

Max couldn’t keep trying it if meant she lost who she was, in the process.

Yet.

She couldn’t let Chloe die.

She couldn’t let this stupid fucking universe win.

This would be her last attempt.

If she still remembered it afterwards, anyway.

There.

That photo.

She found it.

Max screamed with excitement and tightly clutched at it.

This was the photo she took on her first weekend of being here.

There was a Vortex Club party for all of the new people.

Everyone was invited.

Even Max.

But she didn’t go, then.

She felt too miserable and pathetic.

Like everyone would know she didn’t really belong at those things.

And it’d just make her life worse, somehow.

That something awful would happen, and make the rest of her time at Blackwell unbearably difficult.

It was a selfie of her own pity party, all alone in her room.

But Max knew, now, that Victoria cared for her, on some level.

She didn’t spend a lot of time in the universe where she was a Vortex Club member, but she did know that.

She saw the way Victoria looked at her.

She saw the nature of their texts.

She wasn’t going to forget the concern in her voice.

Maybe it was just a crush.

Maybe Victoria was just a sycophant for the popular version of Max.

But it was a worth a shot.

Victoria had money.

If Max got close, and asked for a little bit, she could give it to Chloe.

She could avoid the whole troublesome situation in the bathroom if Chloe had the money to pay off everyone.

Chloe wouldn’t die.

Chloe might feel betrayed for Max taking up the social circle she did, but.

Maybe that was the only way this universe would be happy with Max.

Max had to try.

Max had to make a move on Victoria in that party.

And see what came of it.

Max almost couldn’t contain her composure when a piece of metal flew through her window, and the elements of the storm raged inside her room.

But she had to.

She turned her back to it, scrunched down to protect the photo, breathed in deep.

And focused.

The photo glowed.

Max didn’t stop rubbing the necklace until her entire world went white and peaceful again.

And she stopped dreaming of storms.

\---

When Max was ejected out of her memory, Victoria was rubbing her shoulder.

It was the one opposite Victoria.

Her arm had come straight across Max’s back to do it.

They were in public, surrounded by a bunch of Vortex Club members, and people who aspired to be in it.

Their relationship must have been known, and Victoria must have made peace with it, already.

“Max. You’re worrying me, now. Please say something.”

Max breathed in deep, sharply, and squeezed Victoria’s hand.

“I just remembered how I ended up … here.”

Victoria furrowed her brow.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Max nodded, albeit weakly.

“I’m fine now, I think. I still want to talk to Nathan.”

Victoria sighed shallowly and closed her eyes.

“Okay. Please don’t pass out on me, Max.”

Max bit her lip.

Victoria sounded so concerned.

What did Max look like when she was remembering all of that?

Was there obvious agony on her face?

Or did just Victoria know, somehow?

Max couldn’t dwell on it for too long as Nathan rounded the corner and crossed his arms.

They’d ended up on the far side of the building, near one of the edges of the pool.

Max blinked, a little off-put by Nathan’s apparent defensiveness.

But when he saw who it was, his arms fell down to his sides, and his expression softened considerably.

Max still couldn’t really read it, but she had it pinned at some kind of happier one.

“First you’re thirsty for Vic, now you’re thirsty for me. Something’s sure made you more exciting, Max.”

Max nodded, numbly.

She carefully extracted herself from Victoria’s grip to walk closer to Nathan, until they were at a distance appropriate for a conversation that the entire room really didn’t need to hear.

“Nathan, ---“

Max noticed that something about Nathan’s posture changed slightly,

“--- did Chloe ever ask you for money?”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes.

He put his hands into his pockets.

“Chloe? The skater weed burnout that leeched off of Rachel? No. She’d never ask me for money.”

He frowned, slightly, and pulled his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms again.

“Why?”

Max shook her head.

“No reason.”

Nathan frowned.

Max sighed and rewound. She needed a better lie.

“I hear she’s short on money again and I wanted to make sure she had the good sense to not come to you for it.”

Max tried to make it sound a little playful in the way she hoped Nathan would appreciate.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes again, but there was a little bit of a grin on his face.

“Yeah. Let the bitch know I ain’ afraid of wasting her if she tries and put pressure on me for money. I _hate_ it when people try and squeeze me just because my family is loaded.”

Max repressed the shiver in her body as she nodded in response.

Max bit her lip.

She looked around.

There wasn’t that many people in direct earshot.

Only her, Nathan, and Victoria.

She looked back to Nathan.

“So, um.”

Max breathed in deep and tried to steel her voice.

Nathan raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

“Are you still talking to Mr. Jefferson?”

Max could watch the color drain out of his face.

“The _fuck_ did you just say?”

That was hostile.

He was shutting down from the conversation.

He took a step closer ---

Max felt Victoria’s hand on her shoulder.

“Nate, chill. You’ve always wanted her to try some drugs, right? I got her to loosen up last night. I was an idiot though. We did too much, and now she’s had trouble remember things all morning. Isn’t that right, Max?”

Max felt Victoria knew the most political way to get out of this, so she just nodded mutely.

Max considered rewinding, but she figured Victoria was going to tell her the piece of information she wanted to know, now, if she was going out of her way to give her a cover, like this.

Nathan hesitated.

He took a step back to his original position, shoved his hands into his pockets, and sighed severely.

“That’s why I said you start her off on the simple shit. Like weed or something. Jesus Christ, don’t break the girl.”

He grumbled it, but then just shook his head and cleared his throat.

“Max, Mr. Jefferson has been in jail for a few days, now. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Max felt her eyes go wide.

Jefferson was in jail?

Chloe was alive?

Her mind started to race violently at the thoughts of what this might mean.

She had a very real and sudden urge to be outside.

She had to check.

“O-oh, thanks. I think I need some air.”

The swerve was terrible but she didn’t care.

She broke out of Victoria’s grasp and quickly made her way to the building’s exit.

Outside, she stopped, and just breathed in the fresh air.

She was hyperventilating.

She felt her hands shaking.

Did she actually do it, this time?

Did she manage find a way to make a stable fucking universe?

It was a clear and sunny day.

There wasn’t a storm cloud in sight.

This should have been relaxing.

All of the signs were pointing to this being a stable universe.

But then Max had a very sudden, disturbing, disquieting thought.

 

What if there never was any storm?

 

Max felt like a lot of the color just drained out of her world.

Was this the final process of her going insane, now?

Was her brain just imagining all of this?

Did she construct some elaborate scenario wherein she’s the hero of the whole thing?

Is she really in some insane asylum, somewhere?

She saw the concerned look on Victoria’s face.

She saw the way Nathan fidgeted when he realized something was Not Right with this Not Max.

Fucking everyone can tell there’s something wrong with her.

Max just stared at the sky for a long time.

She wasn’t sure which outcome she wanted more, anymore.

A storm to validate she wasn’t insane.

Or no storm and some peace and quiet, for once.

She didn’t notice when Victoria came up behind her.

She did notice when Victoria carefully unwrapped one of Max’s hands and put a beer bottle in it.

She did notice when Victoria kissed her on the cheek and rested her forehead in Max’s hair.

Max just sighed severely.

After a minute or two of just this comfortable position, Max took a sip of the drink.

They both knew it’d help to calm Max’s nerves, right now.

Victoria spoke calmly, evenly, and quietly.

“When I’m fucked up, that’s the real me, yeah.”

She was actually gently singing.

But she was fucking awful at singing.

Despite everything, Max had to giggle softly at that.

It felt weird to laugh.

She took another sip.

It was probably the alcohol that was making her giggly.

So she wanted more of it.

Because it felt nice.

“You’re terrible at singing.”

Max said, distantly.

“Jealousy is such an ugly color on you, Max.”

Victoria sounded a bit drained, but she was still trying to calm Max’s nerves.

She was still caring.

But she then sighed.

She pulled away from Max’s side and moved around to be in front of her.

She grasped at one of Max’s free hands and tightly squeezed with her own.

“Max. I have to know. The reason you’re here … it was to stop Jefferson, wasn’t it?”

Max pursed her lips.

If Victoria didn’t believe her about all of this, she was awfully convincing at seeming like she did.

It made Max feel less insane to know someone else was genuinely interested in all of this.

Even if it was all in her head, somehow.

“Yeah.”

Max admitted, slowly.

“But it looks like I didn’t have to even try, this time.”

Victoria bit her lip.

“Max. You really don’t remember?”

Max blinked, and carefully looked at Victoria’s face.

“Remember what?”

Victoria sighed again, and squeezed Max’s hand firmly.

“Max. You had a hate-boner for Jefferson. You went on a week-long mission to get him arrested. You went up to the Prescott manor and talked to Sean. You stopped Jefferson.”

Victoria looked down.

She spoke quietly.

“Afterwards, you made us all three promise we’d never talk about it, again.”

Max was speechless.

Was that part of her plan, too?

She couldn’t remember what she did after the photo jump.

It had to have been something she did, though.

The Max native to this universe wouldn’t otherwise know about Nathan’s connection to everything, and how much of a fucking creep Jefferson was.

Max sat down without really realizing it.

Victoria sat down in front of her, too.

Max was silent for a long time.

Just thinking.

Considering.

Victoria looked worried.

“Max, please. Talk to me.”

She squeezed Max’s hand again.

Max squeezed back.

She took another sip of her drink.

After another long delay, Max spoke.

Her voice was quiet though, and pathetic in a way she hated.

“Where I come from, the world ends on Friday. A big storm comes and wipes everything out.”

She breathed out, slowly.

“Jefferson captured not just Rachel, but me, and you, and …”

Max found her voice quivering.

“And as soon as he was done with Nathan, he-killed-him-too-and---“

Victoria was hugging her again.

“It’s okay. Shh.”

Max put the beer bottle down to return the hug.

She needed this, right now.

She needed to feel Victoria’s hands in her hair, again.

She needed to be reminded that this wasn’t fake.

That she was still alive.

And that this world wasn’t really all that fucked, like she thought it was.

She cried again.

She cried a lot.

She finished her beer bottle while she cried.

When she was done _feeling_ everything, again, Victoria was still there for her.

Max resumed talking.

Her voice felt a bit better now, somehow.

“I just … it’s so overwhelming to think that this might be over. I-if there’s no storm tonight …”

Victoria squeezed every fiber of Max’s being in her hug before she pulled away and stood up.

“There’s not going to be a storm tonight, Max.”

She said it very confidently.

It was almost enough to make Max believe it, herself.

She carefully stood up with Victoria.

“I ---“

Victoria put a hand up and hushed Max by placing a finger on her lips.

“Please. Trust me on this. Spend some time this afternoon to relax. You’re really stressed right now and it shows. Just … stop thinking about all of this. There’s some weed in my room if you want it.”

Max considered it.

She never thought about what would happen the day after Friday.

When she found an un-fucked world.

She never thought about relaxing.

Max had to know something, though.

“Do you trust me about all of this? D-do you think I’m insane?”

Victoria sighed severely.

“I don’t know, Max. What I _do_ know is that _you_ believe all of this is true. And I know that you like being around me, and I like being around you. So I’m going to be around you until you can breathe easily, again. I don’t care if that makes neither, one, or both of us crazy.”

Max sniffled and considered Victoria’s words.

Maybe it didn’t really matter if she was actually insane if Victoria didn’t judge her for it.

If being crazy still meant she could sleep with Victoria.

If she could still see the little glimpses of a vulnerable Victoria that couldn’t sing and liked terrible movies.

Victoria cracked her neck.

“And tonight, you’re attending this party. You’re going to see there’s no storm. You’re going to enjoy yourself.”

She got a bit of a devious smile.

“And maybe you’ll enjoy me tonight, too.”

Max knew the old her that started this week wouldn’t have been able to meet such a direct flirt with anything more than nervous giggles and blushing.

But Max wasn’t even sure if that person existed anymore, or ever existed in the first place.

So she just got close to Victoria, instead, and kissed her in response.

They tightly interlocked their fingers.

Max bit at Victoria’s lip.

Victoria closed her eyes and exhaled pleasantly, but she then gently untangled herself from Max and patted herself down to fix her clothing.

“Mmm. Not now. But I like the thinking; out here, in public. Save it for the party.”

Max blinked.

“You want to have sex during the party?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“ _Duh_. We’re both exhibitionists --- or the other Max was, anyway --- and it’s not like any club members are going to fucking judge.”

Max bit her own lip.

She kinda liked the idea of having some people watch her get Victoria off.

 

If nothing else, Victoria had managed to do the impossible, and got Max to stop thinking about how fucked and unfair the whole universe was.

And got her into thinking about horribly perverted thoughts.

But it was okay.

Max was shameless, by now.

Max didn’t want to dream of storms.

She couldn’t even remember the last time that she hadn’t.

 

Max did relax, the rest of the day.

She actually went to her classes and tried to pretend like it was a normal day.

Like the world wasn’t about to end this afternoon.

Victoria made a point of forcing them to eat lunch in her room while she put on some god-awful daytime movie.

The point wasn’t to enjoy the movie itself.

The point was to enjoy the simple act of doing something normal and pedestrian.

Max made a point of not drinking any more alcohol.

At least until the party.

One took the edge off, but two was enough to make her a little too giggly and happy.

She wanted to be here, with Victoria.

She wanted to be present.

She wanted to be alive.

Max didn’t enjoy the awful movie very much.

She did enjoy Victoria tearing it to vicious pieces with sharp criticism, though.

Victoria’s idea for how the plot _should_ have gone was much better.

It was going to be her new head canon for how that movie turned out.

Victoria made a point of forcing them to walk to class together, after that, holding hands.

The point wasn’t to show off to everyone their relationship.

Not really.

The point was to enjoy the simple act of doing something so normal and pedestrian.

So she could pretend it was a normal day.

Like the world wasn’t about to end this afternoon.

After all of her classes, Max crashed on Victoria’s bed.

She didn’t mind.

Victoria had some homework she wanted to do, before the party started.

Max could hear Victoria telling her to do much the same, so her weekend was clear, and they could live a little bit.

But Max didn’t think she could do homework, right now.

She could watch Victoria quietly doing it all day, though.

The point wasn’t to creep on Victoria, or for Max to procrastinate her homework.

The point was to enjoy the simple act of doing something so normal and pedestrian.

So she could pretend it was a normal day.

Like the world wasn’t about to end, this afternoon.

Max told herself this all day long.

It was relaxing, in a way.

She never wanted to dream of storms.

 

And her day was done, now.

Max just relaxed on Victoria’s bed, idly entertaining any conversational topics that came up.

Eventually,

“I picked out an outfit for you to wear, tonight.”

Max raised an eyebrow, but her eyes were closed and she was lying on her back on Victoria’s bed.

She knew Victoria wasn’t looking in this direction.

“Do you normally?”

“Yeah.”

Rachel’s clothes were getting a bit uncomfortably dirty now, anyway.

But then Max had a sudden thought, and she couldn’t help the grin on her face.

“If you want to dress me up like a doll, you have to strip me and dress me yourself.”

Victoria groaned, but then she seemed to catch on.

“Is that a command?”

Max nodded.

“Yeah.”

Victoria sighed.

“God that’s fucking hot.”

Max nodded again.

“Yeah.”

It was about time to start heading over to the party, anyway.

Max stood up.

So did Victoria.

They met somewhere in the middle.

They kissed, and Max bit at Victoria’s lip, again.

She shivered.

Max liked that reaction.

Max pulled away after a few moments of that, but only her face.

Her hands had come to rest on either side of Victoria.

“What else do you like? We _um_. Don’t usually have very healthy sexual relationships.”

Victoria rolled her eyes, but nodded.

“I’m not surprised.”

She then hesitated, for a few moments.

“You’re not going to ---“

Max sighed directly into Victoria’s neck to silence that moment of self-doubt.

She knew it was coming and they both knew it was bullshit.

But Victoria needed a reminder, sometimes.

She shivered again.

“Y-yeah, okay.”

Victoria slowly lowered one of her hands to find one of Max’s.

She guided it up to her own neck, and carefully positioned it around it in something of a choke hold.

Max’s eyes widened.

“I… like it rough.”

Victoria said, plainly.

Max already knew that, but she didn’t imagine it extended to this.

Max tentatively squeezed just a little bit to get a feel of Victoria’s neck.

She definitely wasn’t confident in doing this.

“N-not too much of that, until you’ve had some … practice. Risky. But.”

She nodded to the wall.

“If you ah. Just do enough of that, and shove me onto my wall… and your knee knows where to go… that’d be pretty fucking hot.”

Max grinned.

She could do that.

She got close again to Victoria, kissed her briefly, before tugging at her lips with some teeth.

Then,

“Pretty fucking hot, huh?”

Victoria nodded.

“Yeah, pretty fuck ---“

Victoria didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.

Max did her best to fulfill Victoria’s little fantasy and shoved her over to the wall.

She made a surprised squeak but her stance wasn’t the usual firm one and she was easily pushed over to it.

Max hurriedly made her way over to Victoria and pinned her wrists over her head.

She then held them in place with just one hand, so the other could go down to her neck.

Victoria was actually physically stronger than Max was, and could easily overpower Max’s one hand with both of hers.

But that wasn’t the point.

It didn’t matter how strong you were when you wanted to be weak.

Victoria slowly canted her head up to allow Max all of the space she wanted, on her neck.

Her own breathing was getting ragged.

She openly moaned when Max’s hand around her neck found purchase, and carefully squeezed.

Max had also coordinated her knee to attack in between Victoria’s thighs, just as she said, at the same time.

But she only did it for a little while.

The knee lowered to just forcefully rubbing further down Victoria’s thigh after that while, and the hand just forcefully stroked.

Max placed little kisses all along Victoria’s cheeks in these cooldown periods.

“O-one more, thing. Ah.”

Max moved her mouth over to Victoria’s ear and pointedly breathed heavily into it.

“Yeah?”

Victoria breathed in deep.

“I um. Don’t want to get off, tonight.”

Max’s eyes went a little wide again, but it’s not like Victoria could see it from this position.

Max bit down on that ear’s lobe, carefully.

“You sure about that?”

Victoria scoffed, though it was kind of weak and a little too breathless.

“Fucking _yes_. Don’t you dare let me cum tonight.”

Max responded in kind by squeezing at Victoria’s neck again and redoubling the grinding of her knee.

Victoria didn’t moan this time, but her breathing hitched, and she started to sway her body to increase the contact against Max’s body.

“Was that a command?”

Victoria nodded, albeit very slightly.

“Yeah. W-what … what are you going to do about it?”

Max squeezed Victoria’s neck more tightly.

It was a little awkward to position, but she also bit down on some part of her neck under her ear, away from the hand.

Max didn’t dignify Victoria’s challenge with a response.

She just suckled on the bite wound she gave until it would leave a mark.

And then stopped all of her attentions by pulling away.

“Come on already. Dress me. Let’s not keep your friends waiting for too long.”

Victoria stayed splayed against the wall for a good minute, just breathing severely.

She then swallowed, and carefully peeled herself off of the wall with a weak nod.

“Fucking hot …”

She reiterated.

Max smiled, gently.

 

Max did look better in the clothes Victoria had picked out for her.

Max thought Victoria looked better when her cheeks were obviously flushed and she didn’t breathe quite right.

It took far longer than it should have to change Max, since Max’s nails kept digging into Victoria’s skin whenever they met.

But eventually, they managed.

Victoria changed as well, but it was over with more quickly.

Max tossed Rachel’s clothes into Max’s room as they made their way out.

She felt more confident and bold in clean, well-fitting clothes.

Max made a point of nibbling briefly on Victoria’s ear or spanking her gently if she thought she was calming down too much.

Max figured part of the not-cumming deal was also being pent-up all night.

Victoria made various complaining noises, but never told her to stop.

It just made her blush deeper, now that they were increasingly in more public of spaces.

 

Max didn’t miss the bite of the air, outside.

Her outfit was a little bit too loud and revealing to properly shield her from the cold.

But that was okay.

They were only going to be outside for a short little walk.

Max hugged Victoria closer by reaching an arm across her back and rubbing at the shoulder, there.

She didn’t even think to look to the sky to check if there was a storm brewing on the horizon.

 

Max was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of sensory information when they made it into the party.

The music was loud.

It was so loud, she felt every beat of the bass reverberate through her chest.

It made it hard to think about much else.

That was probably the point, she realized, belatedly.

Max and Victoria immediately picked up drinks and made their way over where some other party-goers were dancing.

Despite it all, Max had to drink the entire bottle before she had the nerve to be dragged onto the dance floor proper with Victoria.

Max couldn’t dance.

But Victoria couldn’t really, either.

And at this point, she had a full drink in her.

She was working on a second one, even.

The music was totally overwhelming her senses and the beat was compelling her to move.

Everyone around her was even more drunk than she was and was encouraging it.

Their cheers were eager, happy, joyful.

No one was recording this or anything, it was just a way to unwind and relax.

Max didn’t care that she couldn’t dance, right here, right now.

 

It was much later in the night when Victoria dragged Max into the section of the party only for members of their club.

The music was different in here.

She could actually think, for one.

But Max was giddy and bubbly all over.

The dancing and general excitement had her heart rate up, and the few drinks probably helped more than a little bit.

Just as well, Victoria’s blush had officially consumed most of her face.

But that was okay, too.

They were in good company, here.

Max allowed herself to be guided towards a couch.

It was more like a sectional, really.

She sat down near one end of it, with an armrest nearby.

Victoria sat down right next to her.

There was a lot of goddamn blankets and pillows on this couch and they all didn’t match, or anything.

Max couldn’t really figure out why they’d possibly need so many blankets.

At least, not until Victoria draped one over their lower halves, and immediately snaked one of her hands into Max’s jeans.

_Oh._

Things made more sense, now.

Max giggled and inaccurately kissed at Victoria’s lips.

It took a second try to land it properly, and Victoria just grumbled,

“Okay, no more drinks for you, for now.”

Max wasn’t planning on drinking anymore, anyway, but the thought that Victoria was counting her drinks and being mindful of it made her giggle, again.

It took even longer for Max to realize there were other people in the room, too.

On the other end of the couch, Nathan was enjoying some woman who Max couldn’t name.

She also recognized Taylor, Courtney, and Hayden, but they were all enjoying some drug accessories Max didn’t quite understand the purpose of, and were paying more attention to Nathan’s escapade right now, anyway.

Probably because they were much noisier and much less clothed.

Max wondered if this technically qualified as an orgy.

And then stopped wondering anything at all as Victoria’s hands made good on their efforts and had her body tensing up, briefly.

That felt really good.

Right.

Max looked back to Victoria, and started to make out with her, again.

She moved her hands over to enjoy Victoria’s body, as well.

Max could have done this all night, for all she cared.

  
  


Art by the awesome [Todd](http://skiretehfox.tumblr.com/)

At some point, Victoria inched closer, and whispered dangerously into Max’s ear.

“Let me show you why you want to keep me all pent-up and needy.”

It would have been a lot more erotic if Max didn’t have so many drinks in her and wasn’t so giddy.

Max was all giggles and sunshine as Victoria made her way underneath the blanket, kneeling in between Max’s legs.

It was a little awkward to get off her jeans.

But Max stopped caring about much at all when Victoria’s head moved between her legs.

That felt _really_ good.

Max made all of the higher-pitched, breathless sounds of enjoyment she wanted to make.

And the fact that Nathan and company had finished by now, and all eyes were on them, just made the deal a little bit sweeter.

Max was pretty sure this was the first time she had people watching her so directly.

Max was pretty sure this was the first time someone ate her out.

Max was pretty sure this was the first time her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

Max was pretty sure this was the first time she felt her blush go all of the way down her body.

But so long as Victoria was here, and they both enjoyed it, she didn’t care.

 

Max passed out at some point later in the night.

Victoria’s apparent skill had exhausted her far more than she thought it would.

The drinks and Max’s general stress probably wasn’t helping the situation, either.

Victoria used Max as a comfortable pillow for her night, as well.

 

Max slept well, that night.

Despite the noise.

Despite the terrible god-awful _you get me closer to god_ music.

Despite the others in the room who were definitely not asleep.

 

Max didn’t dream of storms.

And none came.


	3. Tape Jam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max is in a field without her jeans.
> 
> Chloe talks to a Vortex Club asshole.
> 
> Max contemplates restarting.
> 
> Somewhere, a much better song is playing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notice: The emotional stuff gets a lot heavier from here on out. Sorry in advance.

_Holy shit._

Max never had such a headache before in her life.

Or at least, not one like this.

Her time travel aches were more acute and piercing.

When she pushed her powers too hard, she could feel her nerves igniting on fire and her brain being crushed under the exertion.

This was different.

Everything felt sluggish and hazy.

This ache was not acute; it was diffuse, and it weighed down all of her thoughts like a cloud of tar.

She blinked her eyes open several times but it wasn’t making it actually any easier to _see._

She mindlessly stood up, and immediately fell right back down again.

Right.

Vertigo.

She probably should have been expecting that.

Max patted at her own thighs and stood up more carefully, this time.

She then breathed in deep and looked around.

She was still in the VIP longue for Vortex Club members.

Everyone else was crashed on the couch, still.

But Victoria.

Max pursed her lips, slightly.

Max then coughed softly, and realized how thirsty she was again.

But that didn’t matter.

Not right now, anyway.

And it’s not like there were any bottles of water here, anyway.

Just miles of empty beer cans and discarded drug paraphernalia.

She cautiously made her way out of the room.

The pool area was a fucking mess.

Bottles of beer were everywhere, some even shattered.

Someone had the bright idea to tear apart some pool noodles and there were oddly-colored fluffy guts of them discarded everywhere.

How drunk did you have to be to think tearing apart a pool noodle was a fun activity?

The pool itself was unhealthy-looking color. Who knows what had ended up being spilled into it.

Max made a point of ignoring the stench, since she didn’t really want to add queasy to her list of ailments right now.

At least she seemed to be mostly alone, out here.

She carefully made her way to the back exit to get some fresh air.

It still felt pretty stale in here, and for whatever reason, Nathan liked it better when he “hot boxed” everything instead of turning on the industrial-grade ventilation.

Going outside was a mistake.

That’s where the sun was.

Max’s eyes and the sun were not on the speaking terms, right now.

But at least it was raising, and not skywards.

The rays were still oblique and glancing, and not a full-frontal assault.

Max noticed the bite of the air again, but.

This time, she liked the feeling.

The subtle twinge of what of her skin was exposed helped her to wake up, and remind herself that she was still alive.

It was Saturday, and she was still alive.

Chloe was still alive.

Mr. Jefferson was in jail.

She did it, somehow.

Yet.

She also failed.

Chloe hated her.

Nathan was suspicious of her, for how she was acting.

Victoria only cared for her out of some kind of pity party. She saw Max as another fucked-up broken person, like Nathan.

Maybe that’s who she was, now, but it didn’t feel healthy.

Kate was dead.

Max didn’t even want to think about that.

Warren didn’t even want to talk to her.

That was almost okay, since he seemed to come out of this whole affair mostly unscathed.

Rachel, she figured, was still dead too, if they had anything substantial to hold Mr. Jefferson for.

Chloe was alive now, but what did she have to live for if both her former lover and best friend betrayed her so severely, and her father was out of her life?

Some cruel fucking joke this was.

Max did everything she could to make a universe that wasn’t fucked.

And when she finally gets one, it ends up being a different _kind_ of fucked.

She was crying without realizing it.

She was surprised that a Victoria was just _right there_ that entire time, casually smoking a cigarette.

Victoria was surprised herself when she turned around to just see a distant, exhausted-looking Max.

She frowned.

She bit her lip.

She put out her cigarette against the wall and let it fall to the floor, before carefully walking over to Max.

She put a hand on Max’s shoulder and rubbed vigorously.

“Hey. Look. No storm. It’s Saturday. You’re okay. Everything is fine.”

Max recognized this tone.

Victoria was fucking talking to her like a crazy person and it made her angrier than it should have.

Max brusquely shoved off Victoria’s hand and walked forwards, a bit more, away from the building.

Until she could feel the grass against her feet.

“Max …”

Victoria sounded hurt.

Good.

She should have.

This universe was fucking terrible.

All Max was doing was selfishly staying in it so she could get some fucking sex.

How pathetic was she?

“Max.”

Victoria tried again, closer behind her, this time.

“You’re worrying me.”

Max wasn’t really sure why that, of all things, kicked up her anger.

She turned around to face Victoria.

There must have been something severe on her face since Victoria flinched.

“Like I don’t fucking _know_ that. All I do is worry you.”

Victoria bit her lip.

“Is that what you think all of this is?”

Her voice was getting softer and more halting.

Max raised both of her arms, uselessly.

“What else can this be? I’m going fucking insane and you’re just entertaining it to have a fuck buddy or something. Max: the big fucking pity party for everyone to see.”

Victoria flinched again, and looked down.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Max wasn’t having it.

“And now, when I finally do what I’ve been trying to do ever since I’ve got my powers, everything is _fucked_. Chloe hates me. Kate is dead. Warren won’t talk to me. Rachel’s gone. We’re nothing more than fuck-buddies. Nathan is still walking around and hasn’t learned a _goddamn_ thing. Jefferson’s in jail, sure, but I’m not even positive he’s going to get a fucking conviction! What if Sean just pulled a fast one on me? I don’t even fucking know.”

It all came out too loud, too uneven.

This had been building for a while.

It was just so fucking _unfair._

What the hell did Max do to deserve this?

Why was she given these fucking powers if everything just got worse and worse when she used them?

Max was breathing severely without realizing it.

Her nails were digging into her palms.

She was shaking.

Max knew this was anger.

She knew this was going to burn her out.

She knew she shouldn’t be angry.

Angry was the opposite of the reaction a normal, healthy, sane person should have to completing their goal.

But Max wasn’t fucking sane anymore and she didn’t care.

Let her be angry.

Victoria stayed quiet, for a while, then just nodded.

“I see.”

Her voice was flat, and unfeeling.

The Other Maxes were screaming loudly, internal to Max, now – this was not a good sign. Victoria was shutting down. Max had hurt her.

But she didn’t fucking care.

“Please drink some water. I know you haven’t yet. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Victoria’s voice was still so flat.

So hurt.

She didn’t meet Max’s eyes, and she carefully walked back into the building.

The closing of the door felt louder than it should have.

Max breathed severely for a few more seconds, before the realization and _guilt_ hit her, again.

She collapsed onto her knees.

Her anger was always fleeting, but it had fucking terrible timing, sometimes.

No.

It couldn’t happen like this.

She needed to –

_Ow._

Max forcefully rubbed at her head and almost collapsed into a fetal position.

She couldn’t rewind, right now.

Not with the ache in her head from being hung over.

Not with this emotional exertion.

_Fuck._

Max stayed like that, for an alarmingly long time.

Eventually, she peeled herself up to stand.

She felt numb.

This universe was now just a little bit more fucked.

And it was all her fault.

She only belatedly realized that she still hadn’t put on any jeans.

At least she had some panties on.

She should probably find some jeans.

So that’s what she did.

 

Max felt even more numb when she retrieved her jeans back from the VIP section.

Victoria was long gone.

Max checked her phone.

No messages from Chloe.

She tried to call.

She went straight to voice mail.

Her anger flared again and she tossed her phone against the wall.

It shattered.

_Fuck._

Max sighed, and rewound, now that she was better capable of doing that.

It still hurt, but she could manage a few seconds, like that.

Max needed to talk to Chloe.

She was worried that Chloe would do something stupid, now that the last of her relationships only ended up in betrayal.

She needed to see if this universe was salvageable in any way.

 

Max took public transit to Chloe’s neighborhood.

She still had to do some walking, but that was fine.

She could have asked Victoria, since she had a car, but Max wanted some time to cool down and reflect on why her anger kicked up.

If she got angry at Victoria again, so soon, it might be the end of their relationship.

She did need some more clothes, though.

Her closet had a more fashionable over-shirt that she didn’t recognize.

But she liked the bright color, and she liked how warm it was.

So she could hide from the bite of the cold air, outside.

Max had some time to think and reflect while she was walking, anyway.

 

Max made it to the Price household.

More memories, all conflicting.

But she had some gentle ones, too.

From far back in her childhood.

Max cherished her memories that didn’t conflict with one another the most.

Max closed her eyes.

If she tried hard enough, she could believe she was back in time, just playing pirates with Chloe.

Back before Chloe’s father died, and things got hard.

Back before Max was the worst friend in the world to Chloe, and then doubled down on it.

Max compelled herself into knocking without the conscious part of her mind being aware.

Mr. Madsen answered the door.

His expression was happy before he fully recognized who it was.

Then, he frowned.

“Oh. What do you want?”

Max repressed a sigh.

Her reputation with the Vortex Club probably preceded her.

Max only just now realized that she looked the part, too.

She was a Vortex Club member, in this time line.

For all the good, and all the bad, that implied.

Instead, she just put on a gentle smile.

“I’d like to see Chloe, if that’s not too much to ask.”

He crossed his arms and leaned over on one leg.

“Yeah? So you can sell her some drugs? I know your game.”

“David!”

Max leaned over to the side, slightly, to see Joyce coming from the family room.

She was all smiles, somehow.

Max wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her not smiling.

Max carefully repressed the part of her that knew perfectly well the time that Joyce hadn’t smiled.

“This is one of Chloe’s best old friends. She’s not here to sell drugs. Don’t y’all get off on the wrong foot, now.”

She then pleasantly looked to Max and offered her warmest, hospitable smile.

“Hi sweetie. How’s school?”

Max returned the smile, though it didn’t feel genuine.

“Oh, wonderful, Joyce. Is Chloe home? I want to talk to her.”

Joyce nodded.

David was just looking off into the distance, clearly unhappy with the arrangement.

“Oh sure, she’s right upstairs. But do be careful, she’s been a little … angry, lately.”

Max couldn’t repress the flinch.

_Your fault._

“Yeah. I’m worried about her.”

This made Joyce smile so very wide. She was positively beaming.

“Oh, good! Honey, I think that’s what she needs most, right now. Go on up.”

Joyce looked back to David, expectantly, until he grumbled and got out of the way.

But he didn’t stop staring at her the entire way Max made her way up the stairs.

Maybe he was right to distrust Max.

Max carefully knocked on Chloe’s door.

“Who is it?”

“Max.”

Max heard a sigh from the other end of the door.

“It’s open.”

Max frowned.

Chloe didn’t sound like Chloe.

She sounded drained, and miserable.

Max carefully opened the door to Chloe’s room and closed it behind her.

At least Chloe still _looked_ like Chloe.

She was on her bed, laying all of the way down, on her back.

Chloe’s room looked just like it should.

Max had to deal with being overrun with emotions, again.

Sympathy. Distress. Affection. Determination. Loss.

“What do you want, dude? I thought you’d take the hint by now.”

Max started towards Chloe’s bed.

Chloe shot up. 

She sat off of the edge and leaned over.

Max recognized the position.

All of the weight on her knees and elbows.

Distance in her eyes.

No ease in her breathing.

No amount of drugs or alcohol in the world could cover up persistent self-doubt and stress.

Max stopped, suddenly, a few feet away.

She wasn’t sure how close Chloe would let her be, right now.

“I don’t want us to be enemies, Chloe. I got you that money, didn’t I?”

Chloe scoffed dangerously. She didn’t look up.

“Yeah fucking great, I get it. I’m poor. I have to go to some Vortex Club _assholes_ just so I don’t end up begging for more from fucking _drug dealers._ Whoop-de-do. You want a cookie or something for being the rich asshole in this situation?”

Max frowned.

That was the wrong approach to take.

She rewound, and didn’t care about making the ache in her head worse, right now.

“I don’t want us to be enemies, Chloe. We used to be so close.”

Chloe grunted.

“Yeah. We used to be. Then you ignored me for years, fed me some bullshit about being too nervous to reconnect, and then as soon as you found out that someone had fucking raped me, you went and befriended him. You’re just like everyone else who abandons me when I need them the most. You’re dead to me now, Max. **Fuck.** **Off**.”

_Owch._

Max tried to ignore the tears that were threatening to come out and rewound again.

“I don’t want us to be enemies, Chloe. I just … I don’t know what to say that would make you feel better.”

This got Chloe looking up, at least.

“How about fucking sorry? Did you ever think to say that? Or is that a verboten word in the vortex club?”

Max hadn’t, honestly, and wasn’t sure why.

She rewound.

“I don’t want us to be enemies, Chloe. I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you. You’ve never deserved your friend becoming some distant Vortex Club asshole.”

Chloe hesitated.

She looked up.

Her eyes were red and irritated, but Max didn’t know if that was from crying, or drugs, or both.

“Yeah. You better be sorry.”

She sighed.

“But I guess you being self-aware is … a start.”

Max tried to keep her face neutral and repress how happy she was feeling that she was making _some_ kind of progress.

Chloe continued.

“So. Why are you here? Do you want your money back? I don’t got it.”

Max frowned, slightly.

She didn’t even think that getting the money for Chloe would add this weird element to their relationship.

She didn’t like it, at all.

Was that all Chloe thought of when she thought of Max, now?

Max shook her head.

“No. I don’t care about the money, Chloe. I was just thinking about you, and I got worried when I went straight to voice mail. I know … it’s been really tough on you.”

Max didn’t have to specify what ‘it’ was.

Both of them already knew.

Chloe stood up and crossed her arms.

There was a dangerous kind of energy in her eyes for a few seconds.

“Fucking _bullshit_. No one knows what I’m going through --- least of which some Vortex Club _asshole_. My parents don’t care. No one cares. _You_ don’t care.”

She hesitated, then,

“I don’t trust you, Max. You don’t deserve it.”

Max flinched.

_Your fault._

Max then just nodded.

Her being self-deprecating earlier was the only route that had any kind of success with Chloe, so she decided to continue that.

“I know I don’t, Chloe. I’m not barging in here and demanding that we fix everything and go back to how we were when we were kids. I just… I don’t want to be enemies.”

Max bit her lip, slightly.

“After Kate, I think I’ve done enough damage to this world. I want to do something right, for once.”

Max wasn’t even really sure how much of this was a lie per se, or how much of this was Native Max coming out to try and convince Native Chloe that she was different, now.

Multiple timelines were fucking confusing sometimes.

This seemed to unbalance Chloe.

She probably wasn’t expecting a remorseful Max.

Chloe was quiet, for a few moments.

Chloe then groaned, and looked to the ceiling.

“There’s no hell hot enough for what you, Nathan, and Victoria did to Kate, Max. I hope you never fucking forget that for as long as you live.”

Max shivered and exhaled uneasily.

Max knew that in this world, she had to make some difficult decisions.

She never watched the video to know what her full involvement in it was, but.

She knew she was a loyal, trusted member of the Vortex Club.

This conversation was far more difficult on her psyche than she was expecting it to be.

She couldn’t help a tear that came down from one of her eyes.

She rubbed at her eye with just one hand, gently, and looked down.

“Yeah…”

Her voice came out distant, and remorseful.

Chloe frowned, and hesitated some more.

She could see Max’s emotional reaction.

She had looked down when she heard Max’s faltering voice.

“Shit, you’re serious about this.”

Max nodded gently again.

Chloe sighed and groaned severely.

She put her hands up to her cheeks and harshly dragged them down until her hands fell limply by her side.

Her voice came out drained and flat.

“Look, Max. I can’t … I don’t have the fortitude to forgive you.”

Max frowned, but sniffled, and allowed Chloe to continue.

“Not right now. Not like this. Not after everything you’ve done. Not after one conversation. If you’re … serious. I’m …”

Chloe was looking for words to use, here.

That was okay.

Max was okay with giving her some time to work through this.

Now that the world wasn’t about to end, anyway.

“I’m going to need more time. I don’t know if I can ever trust you again, Max. But I don’t have to hate you, either.”

Max breathed in, deep.

“Okay.”

She smiled weakly, despite it all.

“I guess that’s a start.”

Chloe smiled barely, too.

“Yeah. I guess that’s a start.”

They held that thought for a few moments.

Chloe then sighed, and fell back on her bed.

“Enough mushy shit. I’m going to get fucked-up. And you’re leaving.”

Max opened her mouth to say something, but figured this was about as good as it was going to get, right now.

She turned to walk out.

When she reached the door,

“Hey Max? _Fuck you_. But thanks for trying, I guess. … Come back later.”

Max wasn’t sure if this counted as a success, or not.

But Chloe texted her when she was walking down the stairs.

Max didn’t have her friend back, but.

She didn’t gain a new enemy in this world, either.

Max made sure to get a glass of water on her way out.

So she could chat pleasantly with Joyce.

She ignored the knowing stares of David.

He probably knew she only wanted water since she was hung over.

But that was okay.

Max wasn’t sure if her relationship with him was salvageable.

He was kind of mean to her even when she _was_ totally innocent.

Max wasn’t totally innocent, anymore.

The cold water in her throat helped her to remind herself that she was still alive.

And that she was still fighting.

For some kind of un-fucked universe.

 

The rest of her day went by in a kind of a blur.

She knew Victoria and Nathan tried to talk to her a few times, but she wasn’t interested.

She’d been contemplating how this universe turned out ever since her conversation with Chloe.

_I don’t know if I can ever trust you again, Max._

Max had some pretty confusing emotions for Chloe and the idea that she brought so much undue pain and misery to her was just the least fucking fair thing in the whole world.

Could she really prioritize Chloe being alive over Chloe being happy?

Was it selfish for Max to want Chloe alive?

Or was it selfless to sacrifice their relationship, if it meant Chloe was alive?

Max sat down on the steps outside of her dorm.

The sun was setting, now.

The sky was a kind of peaceful golden color, and it was one of those days where everything else was just a bit more yellow as a consequence.

Max had no right to be upset.

She got what she wanted.

This universe was stable.

Chloe was alive.

Jefferson got what he deserved, mostly.

There was no storm, and the only deaths were Rachel and Kate.

But despite that, she’d been staring at this fucking photo all afternoon.

She didn’t even know how long she’d been staring at it just during this one sit-down period.

But it had to have been a long time.

The photo of her, sitting all alone, in her room, on this first weekend of class.

The photo that started all of this.

Her ticket out of here.

To another, better universe.

She could go back.

Maybe she wouldn’t even tell the Native Max to stay put.

Maybe she’d just retry this outcome, but with different variables.

She’d handle Jefferson, differently, somehow.

She’d get the money without being involved with the Vortex Club.

She’d have to find some way to prevent Chloe from knowing what really happened to Rachel.

She could make something perfect out of this, somehow.

It didn't matter if she lost a bit more of herself.

She sniffled.

If she told herself that enough, she could believe it.

She could make something perfect out of this, somehow.

If she just tried hard enough.

If she just believed.

If she just ignored what it was doing to her.

If she just believed.

If she just believed.

 

Victoria sat down quietly beside her.

Max noticed, but didn’t respond.

Victoria was quiet for a long while.

“Me caring for your weirdness is selfish.”

Victoria said, flatly.

This was odd enough to stir Max out of her stupor and look up to Victoria.

Her face softened up considerably when she saw what was going on with Max’s.

There must have been some pain visible, on there.

“Huh?”

“Earlier. You think I’m caring for you because of pity.”

She sighed.

“It’s not. It’s selfish.”

She looked forward, at the sunset.

“I’m not a nice person, Max.”

Max didn’t object.

“No one was happy about Kate’s death. We didn’t …”

She frowned.

“You were there. You didn’t even think Kate would go that far. We all thought it would be a nice way to break her out of her judgmental bitch phase.”

She sighed.

“But it wasn’t. We made a mistake.”

She looked back to Max.

“It’s not easy, to admit to yourself. That you’re not a nice person. That you’re really the evil villain of someone’s else story. I didn’t want to believe it for so long.”

She looked forward again.

“But there’s no other alternative explanations. We bullied Kate until she died. We’re the assholes, here.”

She sighed severely.

“Caring for you and Nathan is the one thing I have in my life that I can use to tell myself that I’m not the biggest bitch in the universe. It’s selfish. It’s the only thing I have left. It’s not about you. Not really.”

Max blinked.

That was a lot that must have been resting on Victoria’s chest for a long time.

“You feel Kate’s death too?”

Victoria scoffed.

“Fucking _duh._ Of course I do. Even Nathan does, sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking. There’s no excuses for it, Max.”

Max looked forward to the skyline and the setting sun.

She considered Victoria’s words.

Eventually,

“What’s that?”

Victoria was indicating towards Max’s photo.

Max didn’t want to lie.

“The photo that started all of this. In my timeline, I didn’t go that party where I hit on you.”

Max then blinked, and realized that she hadn’t explained this, yet.

“Um. Photos that I have an emotional connection to of some sort I can … jump, into. I don’t know how to describe it. I can manipulate everything around that photo, write down stuff, talk to people, whatever, but I can’t go that far away from it. I have to do enough to ensure the Max that lives in there, natively, behaves in the way I need her to.”

Max sighed.

“Then, sometime later, I assume her body, and all of her memories. They get smashed into mine. I become a little bit more insane.”

Victoria was quiet, contemplating.

“That money you asked me for wasn’t for a new camera, was it?”

Max gave Victoria a side-long look.

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

Victoria pursed her lips.

“You gave it to Chloe.”

Max nodded.

“Probably. She couldn’t ask Nathan for it.”

Victoria frowned.

“Why not?”

Max shook her head.

“Because he’d kill her.”

Victoria’s eyes went wide.

“N-no. He wouldn’t …”

Max frowned, now.

“Well. He did. That’s why I’m here. That’s how I found out about my powers to begin with. I rewound time and stopped him from shooting her.”

Max then sighed, severely.

“But that was a mistake, I guess. You ever see _Donnie Darko_? The universe just kind of started to hate me after that. Big _… fuckin…_ bullshit storm comes on Friday to either kill Chloe or take out the town. Not a lot of people survive.”

Max closed her eyes, and raised her head.

“I can’t let Chloe die. She’s been my longest-term friend. My first crush. We were so close as kids…”

Victoria bit her lip, and was quiet for a long while after that.

It was okay.

Max came out here to think, anyway.

Eventually, Max continued,

“So I’ve been jumping from photo to photo for … I don’t even know how long, now. I’ve been in so many time lines. I’ve talked to so many people. I’ve done this whole thing so many times. But no matter what I do, everything is fucked, someway, somehow. Either Chloe dies, or Jefferson wins, or, I don’t fuckin’ know, Chloe hates my guts and won’t talk to me.”

Victoria carefully found Max’s hand to squeeze it.

Max didn’t resist.

“You’re thinking of going back, aren’t you? Trying again?”

Max hesitated.

“Yeah.”

Victoria nodded, slowly, carefully.

“I can see why. Look. Max. I know I’m probably not you first choice of lover --- scratch that, I’m definitely not --- but, please. Hear me out?”

Max carefully looked over to Victoria.

“Is it selfish to say I want you to stay here, for a little while? You’ve never been in a timeline that survived past Friday, have you?”

Max thought carefully about the question.

“No.”

“So you don’t know what will happen, now?”

“No.”

Victoria sighed.

“Time heals all wounds.”

Max groaned.

“That has to be the worst cliché to use, right now.”

Victoria smiled gently, despite that.

“Thank you, I was thinking on it for a while. But that’s my point, still. Give it like a week. Stay here.”

She squeezed Max’s hand.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. I would never be able to live with myself if I expected perfection, Max. You can’t put the burden of the entire world being perfect on yourself.”

Max sighed, and squeezed Victoria’s hand back.

She looked back down to the photo.

“You won’t try and guilt-trip me into staying here a week from now if I decide enough is enough?”

Victoria shook her head.

Max noticed the singular tear going down Victoria’s cheek.

“No. Your life is hard enough as it is without you thinking of everything you leave behind.”

Max exhaled severely.

Victoria was fucking right about that, at least.

Max carefully put the photo back into her pocket.

“Alright. I guess some part of me selfishly enjoys … us … too.”

Max hesitated.

“Chloe is kind of talking to me again. It’d really mean a lot to me if you apologized to her.”

Victoria groaned.

“Ugh, you hippie.”

She then hesitated, slightly.

“Was that a command?”

Max found herself smiling gently, despite everything.

“Yeah.”

They both looked to the sunset.

“Fucking hot.”

“Yeah.”

Victoria scooted closer.

Max didn’t mind.

She carefully pulled out some earbuds and stuck one of them into Max’s ear.

Max gave Victoria a sidelong look.

“Shut up and let me do this.”

Max opened her mouth to say something, but then just rolled her eyes and went back to watching the yellow slowly fade to an inky dark blue-black.

Max closed her eyes and relaxed against the concrete as the sound of [a gentle song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvhg4enuElY) started to play.

This was way too hippie-indie for Victoria.

 

_A little bride just told me so_

_It’s time to start over again_

 

Max opened her eyes wide and felt her breathing hitch.

_So I’ll run out and take this boat_

_Far away from these shores_

 

Max knew this song.  

She squeezed Victoria’s hand more tightly.

_And I’ll reach behind an enemy line_

_And find my curable cure_

 

Max closed her eyes again.

The instrumentation kicked up a notch.

Both of them sang along to the chorus.

_Cause it’s a cruel and beautiful world_

 

Victoria still couldn’t sing.

_And I got my girl_

Max knew there were definitely tears, now.

 

_And if it seems like we’re falling behind_

But that didn’t matter, either, since Victoria was the only one to see them.

 

_Or just slipping on top from the mouths of our mind._

“Put this on repeat.”

Max said, curtly, and stood up, taking a surprised Victoria onto her feet and down the steps.

“Where are we going?”

Max just smiled.

 

They took Victoria’s car to the beach.

They enjoyed the song a few more times, there.

Max thought about getting naughty, but Victoria objected.

She didn’t feel right doing that when Max was so emotionally vulnerable.

They didn’t have to do that, right now, anyway.

They could just enjoy the sunset with the song that Victoria had picked out.

They sure did enjoy making out with one another, though.

 

Maybe this was selfish.

Max could be selfish for another week.

At least.

 

Max still couldn’t really get rid of her guilt

No matter how much she kissed Victoria.

But it was a start.

 

It was more than she had

Yesterday.


	4. Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe stares at things.
> 
> Victoria stares at Max.
> 
> Max stares at her past, and a potential future.

Chloe had been staring at things a lot, lately.

Staring at her floor.

Staring at her ceiling.

Staring at her bed.

Staring at her hi-fi.

Staring at the street outside.

Staring at the army of empty beer bottles she’d amassed on her desk.

She’d eventually have a pyramid.

Staring at old pictures, when things were better.

When she could believe with all of her being that Rachel was there for her.

When she could believe with all of her being that Max was a good person, and an honest friend.

But things change.

Time marches on.

 

Chloe’s known for a long time now that Rachel was probably either dead, or intentionally avoiding her.

That Rachel didn’t really care.

Deep down, in the darkest, most miserable parts of her core, she knew.

She probably knew all of the way back when she found some condoms in Rachel’s jacket.

What the hell did she need those for.

She probably knew all of the way back when Rachel only really kissed her when they were both drunk.

It’s probably the only time Rachel was attracted to her.

She probably knew all of the way back when Rachel increasingly separated her life from Chloe’s.

And then eventually disappeared entirely.

Rachel had to have been planning something.

Working on something.

Rachel knew something that Chloe didn’t.

And Chloe wasn’t close or trusted enough to know it.

 

Chloe’s known for a long time now that Max was not a good person.

Deep down, in the darkest, most miserable parts of her core, she knew.

This one took a bit more sleuthing to get at, though.

It involved more emotional vulnerability on her behalf.

Rachel just appeared, one day, in some skate park, when Chloe was pissed off at the miserable unfairness of her world, and showed her life could be better.

Max was there for most of Chloe’s childhood.

She’d known Max for much longer.

She _thought_ she knew who Max was, as a person.

But that was before she went to Seattle.

That was before Max ignored Chloe for years and years.

And years and years.

That was before Max came back to Arcadia, and _still_ ignored her.

Chloe figured she’d probably keep on ignoring her if she didn’t get pissed off and pissed drunk enough one day to attend one of those stupid Vortex Club parties.

Chloe probably knew all of the way back then.

That Max was not a good person.

Max was just casually enjoying herself.

Drinking.

Having a good time.

Dancing with Victoria.

No cares in the world.

Max had moved on and done not so much as send Chloe a text to let her know that she’d done that.

She was awkward and defensive when Chloe accosted her.

Good.

Victoria got mad.

Nathan got mad.

Good.

Let Max be awkward. Let them be mad.

Chloe figured she’d done enough damage in crashing the party and left while she was ahead.

Afterwards, Max did try.

To reconnect.

But it was too fucking little too fucking late.

Max didn’t really care.

She was only interested in reconnecting with Chloe, then, to save face.

To ensure that Chloe didn’t publicly embarrass her, again.

 

It was later, when Chloe was sober, and drained of her anger, that Max found her again.

At the light house.

Maybe it was the holiness of the grounds they were on, but neither of them wanted to fight.

Max said she knew what Chloe was going through.

She had an envelope filled with enough money to make things work for Chloe.

But she never said sorry.

She wasn’t emotional about this.

It felt like she had already practiced this, or something.

Max was just using her in some chess game that Chloe couldn’t see or understand.

All of the Vortex Club assholes operated like that.

Chloe wasn’t going to refuse the money, though.

She could give Max at least one opportunity.

Despite all of her judgement screaming at her to cut Max out of her life for good, Chloe sat her down on the bench and told her why it was bothering her so much that Max was getting close to the Vortex Club.

About Nathan.

About what he did to her.

Max’s first words were ‘That’s pretty serious. Do you have any proof?’.

It was official.

Max wasn’t a good person.

She didn’t believe her oldest friend for these stupid new assholes.

That was probably one of the worst afternoons of her life.

The Max that she knew died in Seattle, a long time ago.

This Not Max was just some kind of cruel fucking joke.

One last punch the universe wanted to throw at her.

Another bundle of pain and misery gussied up as one of the bright spots of Chloe’s life.

 

The video with Kate came out later.

Chloe wasn’t surprised who was on it.

Chloe bluntly took another sip of her beer.

She could hear step-asshole’s words already in her mind: _The second you start liking that stuff, the second it doesn’t taste awful to you, it’s too late. Please. Quit while you’re ahead._

Chloe liked beer.

She liked how it tasted.

Maybe it was too late for her.

She didn’t care, right now.

 

But Chloe’s life refused to remain simple for her.

She thought she had everything figured out.

Rachel was gone.

Max was an awful person, now.

Her life was spiraling somewhere miserably and would probably end up violently exploding at some point in some fantastic accident or coincidence.

But then she heard the rumors.

Rachel was alive, in LA, somewhere.

Rachel always wanted to go there.

Max went to the Prescott manor.

Then the next day, Mr. Jefferson is arrested for being a creepy fucking pedophile.

It didn’t take very long for people to start connecting the dots.

It was weird to think of Max going on adventures without her, now.

But maybe that’s how it was just destined to be.

Maybe she never really deserved a friend like Max was in her childhood, anyway.

Maybe she deserved someone like Rachel, who cheated on her gleefully, and lied to her face with a warm, deceiving grin.

Maybe she deserved someone like who Max was now, who was only her friend until Chloe really needed her, then simply up and left her.

But if she drank enough alcohol.

If she smoked enough weed.

If her music was loud enough.

She could pretend none of that was real.

She could pretend she never found the condoms.

She could pretend she never had that conversation with Max.

She could pretend all she really needed to do was get a bit more money.

To go to LA.

To find Rachel.

She could pretend her life was salvageable, somehow.

Chloe wanted to pretend more than anything in the world.

So she did.

She was getting good at it.

 

Max came to her room, at some point.

She wasn’t very good at taking hints, apparently.

She looked very obviously hung-over and her attire wasn’t fully sitting correctly or straight on her body.

Like she slept in it, or something.

Chloe never talked much to Max after the video.

Chloe didn’t deserve a lot of things, but she knew she deserved better than some Vortex Club asshole.

But still, Max felt different, somehow.

Max’s eyes were different.

There was a lot more distance in them.

Like she had lived much longer than she should have.

Chloe could tell by the way she was standing and the way she projected her voice.

Something was different now, about Max.

But it was whatever.

Chloe chalked it up to drugs.

Max probably just came from some party and was too fucked-up to be her normal self.

Maybe Chloe deserved a fucked-up Max that was only remorseful at the bottom of a beer bottle.

Maybe Chloe only deserved friends who enjoyed her when alcohol or drugs were involved.

But Max’s words were more gentle.

She apologized for the first time in however many years.

She knew that she did wrong by Chloe.

She brought up Kate’s video unprompted, and cried when Chloe pressed her on it.

She was remorseful.

Something was different.

Max was never very good at lying, and even if she was fucked-up, this was a pretty elaborate game for her to play.

But Chloe couldn’t just let Max into her life.

Not after those years of abuse.

Not after the conversation at the light house.

Not after everything.

Max didn’t deserve to be trusted.

But some stupid fucking sentimental part of Chloe couldn’t justify cutting Max out of her life, for good.

It thought of Max, crying all alone, because Chloe wouldn’t talk to her.

It thought of the giggly times they shared when they were kids.

It thought of the definitely-not-a-fucking-crush Chloe had on Max, that wasn’t being helped at all by those better clothes and little bit of makeup.

That part of her said that there was a good person in Max, somewhere, somehow.

That it just needed the right kind of friend to bring it out.

Maybe Chloe deserved to be only attracted to people who hurt her.

It was whatever.

She’d text Max, or whatever.

She wouldn’t be happy about it, though.

She’d see if maybe the aftermath of this video _did_ change Max, like she said.

Maybe Chloe could do with a little less pretending.

Maybe she could use Max for the money to get her to LA.

Chloe wasn’t really sure if she could use someone like that, but if anyone deserved it, it was Max.

Maybe in LA, Chloe would find she was looking for.

Maybe she’d find some meaning to her life, again.

Or maybe she’d die trying.

Either outcome, really.

 

Chloe decided she’d done enough reflecting, for now.

She found her weed.

And went back to pretending.

\---

Victoria woke up entangled with Max.

Judging by the lack of an ache in her head, she figured last night had to have been pretty relaxing and low-impact.

She was also surprised to find herself entirely naked, without her hair styled.

That was pretty unusual.

She’d wondered, vaguely, how often Not Max had seen her like this.

She certainly knew how to kiss in the way that Victoria liked.

She shivered.

Victoria was always too chicken-shit to kiss Her Max on the lips.

This Max showed no reticence in doing it.

It was one of the first things she did to Victoria, even.

It was not the only unusual effect this Not Max was bringing about.

Victoria wasn’t even sure how sane she was anymore, herself.

She spent a lot of time wondering how the other time lines had treated Max.

Surely that’s not something a sane person did.

She should have been able to dismiss Max’s time travel ideas out-of-hand.

But she couldn’t.

She wondered what had to have happened to turn the Max she knew into this damaged badass.

What kind of adversity do you have to face before you simply learn to ignore your own body’s needs?

What kind of motivation do you have to have to ignore the damage you’re doing to your own mind?

Victoria frowned when she remembered how motivated Max was in stopping Jefferson.

He probably had something to do with it.

He probably was ultimately responsible for how fucked-up Not Max was, now.

She gently ran her fingers in patterns along the small of Max’s back, and about her sides.

She didn’t want to think about what Mr. Jefferson would have done to Max very much.

Max stirred.

It was still quite early in the morning.

That was okay.

Victoria typically woke up pretty early.

The sun was just barely rising, right now.

It was still an inky dark blueness, outside.

But she could see Max’s eyes opening, despite that.

She could see her breathing easily, sighing contently, and kissing at Victoria’s lips again.

Victoria enjoyed that, selfishly, for all it was worth.

“Good morning.”

Max’s voice was so sweet and soft.

Victoria would choose to wake up to it every morning in a heartbeat, if she could.

“Good morning, you.”

That’s all they needed to say, for a while.

Max rested against the bed, against Victoria.

Victoria rested against Max, against the bed.

At some point their eyes closed again.

Victoria didn’t invite Her Max into her bed very often.

This Max was incessant, though.

She didn’t sleep well, and had some pretty bad coping mechanisms when she woke up alone.

But that was okay, too.

Victoria could enjoy this too, selfishly.

“What was she like?”

Max said, dreamily.

Victoria blinked.

“Who?”

Her own voice came out a bit tired and distant.

“Your Max.”

Victoria breathed in deeply.

“Your pillow talk is _awful_ , Max.”

She hesitated.

“Does it matter? She’s gone now.”

She opened her eyes to see a frowning Max.

“I’ve been going through pictures so often … I don’t even know the person I’m replacing. I can’t remember what it was like before I had these stupid powers. Not really. I just …”

Victoria sighed and placed her forehead against Max’s to shush her up.

“Okay, okay.”

Victoria collected her thoughts, for a few moments.

“My Max is one of the best students in Blackwell. Jefferson was always so proud when we worked together.”

Max softened her face, closed her eyes, and breathed gently against Victoria’s own.

It felt nice.

“My Max was happy to smash after that party. I think she was a little self-conscious about her sexuality. Not the being-a-lesbian thing ---”

“--- Bi.”

Max interjected, automatically, tiredly.

Victoria just rolled her eyes,

“--- Right, _whatever_ , my point was, I don’t think she was uncomfortable _being fucked into the ground_ by a _woman_ \--- “

Victoria paused for emphasis, since she often used vulgarity as a quiet punishment for Her Max.

But it didn’t seem to faze Not Max at all.

“--- so much as she was uncomfortable being a virgin, and then, being inexperienced, after that. We couldn’t talk sex very much.”

Victoria frowned, slightly.

“But I’ve never really deserved someone like that. Someone so happy and nice. The only time I could convince myself to be with her was after I was drunk. I’m pretty sure she noticed. But she never brought it up.”

Max bit briefly at the tip of Victoria’s nose, which got a surprised grunting yelp out of her.

“Not with that attitude you don’t.”

Victoria groaned.

“Don’t you start up. This is my story now, you be quiet.”

Max sighed wearily, but nodded gently and allowed Victoria to continue.

“She started off nice, anyway. The more time she spent around me, the more she acted in a way I think she thought I’d like. A little mean to people. Judge-y. It was whatever. Nice to have someone back me up, like that, I guess.”

Max frowned slightly.

Victoria sighed quietly and closed her eyes.

“Now you see why I think I don’t …”, Victoria hesitated, “… didn’t … deserve her. I think I ruined her, a little bit. I got her into drugs. I got her into drinking. I got her into being a bitch.”

Max was quiet for a little while.

“You also got her into being a perfect student and confident enough to share her photography.”

Victoria blinked a few times. She kept her eyes open, after that.

“What?”

Max sighed.

“Victoria, I’ve never been a good student. In like, any time line. I never had the nerve to really put myself out there and risk failing more egregiously. I never turned in the photos I wanted to for projects. I never took the harder classes I knew I could do.”

Victoria absorbed the information, and tried to square it with both Her Max and Not Max.

It was a little hard to swallow.

Her Max was always just a little bit confident. Maybe it was a façade to impress Victoria, but it never seemed to crack.

This Not Max had tremendous self-motivation. Victoria still couldn’t imagine what it had to be like to prioritize the coherence of the whole world over your own sanity and well-being.

What _was_ Not Max like before all of this time travel nonsense?

She must have been a totally different person.

“I think your Max was just really happy she had a _hot_ girlfriend and did what she could to make you proud. Maybe you’re not … the best of influences, but, come on. Look at me. I’m literally falling apart. She seemed at ease with the world, at least.”

Victoria considered Max’s words some more, and gently nodded.

She decided, selfishly, not to correct Max, and have her continue believing that they were girlfriends.

It was easier, that way, than to explain the reality of that situation.

How Victoria expected all of that out of Max, but was too scared of the title itself.

Too chicken shit. Too underserving. Too miserable.

“Yeah. She was.”

Victoria’s words came out more of a dreamy sigh than anything.

Max noticed and sighed herself.

They enjoyed that thought for a little while.

But something was bothering Victoria.

“Speaking of fucking terrible pillow talk. What’s the deal with you and Chloe?”

Max groaned.

“Ugh, yeah, figured that’d eventually come up.”

Victoria frowned. That wasn’t a reaction she was expecting.

Max was quiet for a little while.

Probably trying to find a diplomatic way to phrase that she was in love with Chloe, and just using Victoria for the sex here, in this specific timeline, since Chloe hated her.

“I don’t really know.”

Victoria thought this was a lie of some kind, but Max’s face was so gentle and so slightly troubled.

Her words came out almost haltingly and quietly.

“I don’t usually have the time to think about it.”

Max didn’t feel the need to elaborate past that.

But it was going to bother Victoria.

“Did you guys ever have sex?”

Max shifted around uncomfortably.

“How much of this do you really want to know? I don’t want to ruin whatever memories you have with your Max.”

Victoria sighed.

“Would you prefer it ruin the time I’m with you, now? Since it’s all I’m thinking about, right now.”

Max bit her lip, but then nodded gently.

“Okay, I guess you have a point, there. I have been talking about Chloe a lot, I guess.”

Max was quiet for a little while longer.

Then,

“We’ve never had sex.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“Never?”

Max shook her head.

“No. We were reunited in kind of an awkward point in Chloe’s life. She’s been struggling to find Rachel – who is kind of like her ex, I guess – and even in the time lines where … she means something more, to me, I think she’s still always thinking of her.”

Victoria bit her lip.

She wondered how much she could tell Max.

But she was kind of already fucked-up, and she at least deserved to put that thought out of her head.

“Max, Rachel is an abusive fuckwad.”

Max’s eyes shot wide open and blinked about a thousand times.

She carefully removed her hands from Victoria’s body.

“Um. What?”

Victoria sighed.

“Rachel. She’s a manipulative abuser. She gets close to people to find out what they want, then exploits their emotional needs to get what she wants. Usually sex, but sometimes things like drugs.”

Max frowned.

She wasn’t trusting Victoria with this.

“How do you know?”

Victoria closed her eyes for a while and thought about the way she could possibly phrase this.

“Because she did it to me. And Nathan. And who knows who else. She’s so _fucking_ … perfect though, it was impossible to confront her about it. She’d always have something on you to keep you quiet.”

Max’s frown deepened.

“Shut up.”

Victoria sighed.

She decided to let Max have her moment of doubt and continue with her larger point.

“So yeah. Chloe might still be thinking of her, but if she is, whatever was going on there wasn’t good for her, Max.”

Max closed her eyes and bowed her head.

Her arms hugged at herself tightly.

There were tears, eventually.

Victoria just hugged her tightly.

“Oh, Chloe.”

Victoria allowed Max the time she needed to cry this one out.

She felt a little guilty for putting more of a load on this Not Max in some sense, but.

She knew she’d feel less guilty than if she never said anything, and Max continued on thinking that Rachel was the best thing that ever happened to Chloe.

It was one of those things where it would get worse, before it got better.

Rachel’s disappearance is one of the few things that Victoria felt no guilt over.

The bitch couldn’t have fucked-off any sooner, as far as she was concerned.

“You okay?”

Max shook her head, slowly.

“Not really. This is so _fucked_ , Victoria. Chloe’s never deserved any of this.”

Victoria sighed.

“So why are you here, then, instead of with her?”

“I …”

Max slumped, uselessly.

“Chloe hates me, she wouldn’t ---“

Victoria shook her head.

“In this universe, or, whatever. Why didn’t you immediately jet when you found out that Chloe didn’t want you?”

Victoria could see the gears in Max’s head turning.

She was trying to find a way to phrase something that wouldn’t upset Victoria.

But that, in of itself, already confirmed the worst of Victoria’s fears.

That whatever this is, it wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t meant to be.

It was just sexual.

Unhealthy.

Her Max only wanted her because Not Max set her up to do so.

She didn’t have any fucking choice.

Not Max relented, eventually, after basically melting and folding her face into Victoria’s shoulder.

But of course, Victoria couldn’t hear a goddamn word she said when she did that, so she had to be put back onto the pillow proper.

“Words, please.”

“Because I’m a fucked-up terrible person who is totally fine with exploiting people if it means I get the information I need, I guess.”

Victoria thought about being offended.

About being shocked, or scandalized.

She really should have been.

Max just confirmed the worst of her fears.

But that trail of thinking was just too conveniently self-deprecating.

It was too familiar.

Victoria knew when she beat herself up like that, that it was undeserved.

Some part of her knew it, anyway.

She couldn’t let Max keep thinking like that.

It was probably bullshit.

“Are you really sure about that?”

Max whined.

She failed to start a sentence a few times.

“I don’t … _ugh_. No? … What do you want out of me, Victoria?”

Victoria kissed at Max’s forehead.

Max sighed severely in response.

For some reason, this emotionally-vulnerable, scared-sounding Max was one of the few things that gave Victoria the confidence to plow right through her own terrible side.

“I want you to be happy, Max. I don’t want to be guilting you into staying here when you’d really rather be somewhere else. I don’t feel exploited out of this. I just don’t want to regret doing what I’m doing later on.”

Victoria raised her head up and closed her eyes tightly.

She had to steel herself for this.

Even if it hurt.

She looked back down to Max.

“So. Do you really want to be here, right now?”

Max was quiet for a little while.

She must have been finding the right way to ---

She kissed at Victoria’s lips and wrapped her arms around.

Victoria thought about protesting, but that part of her died off pretty quickly.

She just enjoyed kissing Max.

It felt less selfish this time to enjoy it, somehow.

“Yes. I do. I can _literally control time_ ; if I wanted to be somewhere else, I would be.”

Victoria sighed herself, now, and closed her eyes.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Victoria rubbed the tip of her nose against Max’s.

It still felt a little sensitive from the gentle biting, earlier.

“Thanks, Max. I think I needed that.”

She felt Max gently bite at her lips for a few seconds, before,

“Yeah. I think I needed that, too.”

 

Victoria’s relationship with Max wasn’t perfect.

There was something going on between her and Chloe.

But maybe, whatever that was, wasn’t meant to be.

Max was here now.

She wanted to be.

That was enough.

For this week, at least.

\---

Max was staring at the clothes in Victoria’s closet.

She was trying to find a night gown but Victoria had like a billion pieces of clothing and there was just _no way_ she managed to use all of this stuff.

Victoria poked her head in.

“Um?”

“Night gown.”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“At the end.”

Max smiled.

“Why thank you.”

Victoria just grunted and went back to whatever she was doing.

Homework, probably.

Max made her way to the far end of the closet, and as said, there were night gowns there.

Most of them were flowery and floral and not the kind of stuff Max would _usually_ wear.

Didn’t Victoria just have like, an oversized tee shirt?

Did every piece of clothing she had have to be immaculate?

Something at the very far end caught her attention.

It had some stripes on the side.

It looked like a sports jersey of some kind.

Finally, an oversized shirt.

It was pretty out-of-place otherwise in Victoria’s closet, which is probably why she hid it at the end, here.

Max gleefully pulled it out and examined it.

Her breathing hitched.

It was for one of the high schools in Seattle.

The one that she almost went to.

Max tried to keep her composure as she put it on.

As hoped, it was ridiculously-sized enough that it functioned as a night gown, and kept her decent.

Max carefully made her way out of Victoria’s closet and sat herself down on the edge of Victoria’s bed.

It had been a few days now since Max decided she was going to stay in this universe for another week.

The guilt wasn’t getting any easier to deal with.

If anything, it was worse, now.

When she started this universe, she didn’t really have meaningful feelings for Victoria.

She was kind of a bitch in pretty much all of the time lines she was in, and even in the time lines where they had sex or maybe a little bit more, she never felt very emotionally-connected to her.

But this was different.

This Victoria cared for her.

She was willing to sacrifice a lot, herself, just to ensure Max was happy.

She took on such a tremendous burden with Max’s fucked-up-ness head-on and seemingly without regrets.

Max knew what this was.

This confusing set of feelings.

And it just wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair to anyone.

Max wanted both Chloe _and_ Victoria, now.

But that’s not how the world works.

It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

“You’re thinking, again.”

Max frowned, slightly.

Victoria was getting better at picking out when her mind was thinking of another universe.

It was kind of worrying.

Was there a light on her head, or something?

“A little bit. You never told me you grew up in Seattle.”

Victoria was back at her computer.

Max looked up to peer at her, but Victoria didn’t look up from her terminal.

“You never asked. Not much to tell. My parents are still there. They own some art museums. That’s about it.”

Max sighed.

“I almost went to your high school.”

Victoria stopped dead.

She carefully looked back at Max.

Max recognized fear for all of a few seconds before Victoria found the presence of mind to hide it.

“You were in Seattle?”

Max nodded, slowly.

“Yeah, for a while. It’s part of why Chloe’s so pissed off at me. I was a terrible friend that ignored her for years while I was there.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t see you ignoring someone for years.”

Max looked down.

“Seattle was not easy on me. I never really fit in, there. I convinced myself Chloe didn’t want to hear about the awkward new kid getting bullied. A day turned into a week, into a month …”

Max sighed.

Victoria’s voice came out softly, this time.

“Did you take any photos around that time?”

Max nodded gently.

“Yeah.”

Victoria bit her lip.

“You’re thinking of going back to then, aren’t you?”

Max nodded gently again.

“Yeah.”

Victoria sighed.

 

The world wasn’t fair, sometimes.

Max’s emotions weren’t fair.

She shouldn’t have been using people like Victoria like this.

She should have known it would have eventually caught up to her and made everything more difficult.

But maybe if she did another reset, this time, she wouldn’t remember anything at all.

Maybe if she did it enough, she would eventually forget who she was, entirely.

Maybe then she could be free of this guilt.

She was crying.

But it was okay.

Victoria had anticipated this.

She had sat down next to Max and wrapped an arm around behind her to rub at her opposite shoulder.

She had a shoulder free for Max to cry on.

And so Max did.

Maybe if Max cried enough, she could empty herself of all of these confusing, conflicting emotions.

And just feel nothing at all.


	5. Fast Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time keeps on slippin'  
> slippin'  
> slippin'
> 
> into the future.

When Victoria wasn’t around, Max stared at photos.

Max hated the fact that she cared enough to not want to worry Victoria about this.

It really wasn’t going to make anything easier.

Max still remembered their conversation on the steps outside of the dorm.

After there was no storm.

Victoria said Max shouldn’t worry about the people she left behind.

It’d just make things harder.

That advice probably would have been easier to follow if she didn’t end up having sex with the people she’s thinking of leaving behind.

Somehow, she never really gave it too much thought.

It was an ends-justifying-the-means sort of scenario.

But it was a visceral kind of selfishness, maybe.

The one thing Max could consistently tell herself to keep her going was that it wasn’t about her.

It was about everyone else.

It was about Chloe being happy.

It was about Rachel being alive.

It was about Jefferson not being able to do his evil plans.

What happened to everyone in these “failed” universes that she photo-jumped out of?

Did she leave a Max behind without her powers?

Was it the same Max she assumed?

No. That couldn’t be right.

That Max was with her, now.

Somewhere in here.

Was it like a kind of suicide?

Did she just flop down, dead, in whatever universe she jumped out of?

The outcome that was easiest for her to deal with, morally, was one of the ideas that Warren floated, in one of the realities that he knew about her powers.

In that whenever she used her powers, she was actually making two universes.

One where she used her powers, and one where she didn’t.

But even this thought felt too morbid.

It still felt like she was making an awful lot of universes with an awful lot of suffering.

All for what?

So she could have a perfect world where nothing hurt and everything felt nice?

Would it even be a perfect world anymore if she was in it?

She was objectively broken.

Everyone could tell something was wrong with her.

She couldn’t even fucking sleep right without waking up like the world was about to end.

Max sighed.

Maybe that’s why she could never seem to find peace in her jumping.

Maybe the very simple act of being so determined to make the world perfect, regardless of the cost, is what precluded her from achieving that goal.

Time travel was fucking confusing, some times.

Why exactly did she have these powers, again?

 

Max put the photo she was looking at down and went through her older archive of photos.

She had a huge box of them.

She was in her room now, which was actually pretty rare, this past week.

She was only ever in her room to look at photos, without Victoria knowing about it.

She made a point of sleeping with Victoria every night, regardless of what they were.

It was selfish, but Max needed to wake up with something.

She needed that reminder that this universe was stable, and her world wasn’t about to end.

She didn’t have nightmares when Victoria was around, anyway.

She also enjoyed it on a purely selfish level.

Some of the photos were organized more carefully, in ring binders, with lamination.

Some of them were just scattered loose in the box, or collected up in an even smaller box within the box.

The central crux of the issue was not _every_ photo would work.

Max had to have been feeling particular emotions during the photo, as it was taken.

Going back into her Seattle photos was actually pretty dangerous territory, for Max.

That was entering into her precious memories.

The memories where nothing was in conflict, and everything was in harmony.

The one part of her cognition she knew for a fact was entirely lucid and all of the Maxes were in agreement with what happened.

They were the core experiences of her life that served as the foundation of who she was, as a person.

Max wasn’t really sure what would happen if she couldn’t even remember her childhood without this stupid chorus of insanity bogging it down.

She wasn’t sure she really wanted to find out, either.

There.

Max could see the glimmer of the photo from a mile away.

That one.

That one she had a connection to.

It was one of the more curated photos, in one of her laminated binders.

She carefully removed it from the plastic and ran her fingers over it.

Max tried to remember exactly when and where this one was from.

She knew it was very early on in her time in Seattle.

Before she had settled on a high school to go to.

Max’s parents actually gave the choice to her, for some reason.

There was a nicer school, with a better reputation, but a more strenuous curriculum.

And there was a less nice school, with none of that.

Her parents thought that the stress of moving and dislocating her entire social life might make it too difficult to immediately perform in higher-demanding classes.

Not like Max was in a very good position to make an informed decision that would impact the rest of her life, like that.

But her parents cared, and they wanted to make the move as easy as they could, on her.

Max closed her eyes, and sighed.

She had the faintest of outline of a plan in mind. It was still a little fuzzy, and she wasn’t entirely sure of it, but it was something.

The Native Max here performed well, in school.

She had more confidence.

Perhaps if she made friends with Victoria all of the way back in Seattle, she’d be able to contain her self-loathing enough to stay in contact with Chloe.

Max didn’t know if Victoria was a bitch all of the way back then.

Or if she would even be receptive to new friends, even if she wasn’t.

But if they got along well-enough now, that was at least some hope they’d get along back then.

Max wasn’t still how much she believed Victoria when she spoke so disparagingly of Rachel.

She didn’t feel right judging someone she’d never met.

Maybe Rachel was just awful to Victoria and Nathan, since, well, it was an easy thing to do.

But maybe staying in contact with Chloe would have some kind of butterfly effect.

It felt like her best possible shot at a universe where everything wasn’t fucked.

There was just one problem.

 

Max.

 

If she did make this cheery, happy world, what the fuck would happen to it when she collided with the Max that lived contently in it?

Like with this world.

This universe was going along without her.

Not brilliantly, but at least things were stable, and the Max native to here was happy, successful, and confident.

She had a girlfriend and straight As.

That was literally more than any other Max in any other timeline had.

Yet when she smashed into it, all she did was make everything worse.

She made Nathan suspicious.

She worried the bejesus out of Victoria, several times.

She might have possibly made things better with Chloe, but it was really hard to tell. Maybe Chloe just needed alone time, and Max talking to her was just prolonging her agony.

What would she do to a perfect world?

What relationships would she ruin when people noticed something was _wrong_ with her?

How damaged would she be when she came out the other end, this time?

How much happiness would she displace by taking the agency away from an otherwise innocent Max, who only ever experienced this pure timeline?

Some cruel fucking joke this all was.

 

Max put away the photos, for now.

But she kept the one in her pocket, just in case.

She needed more time to think on it.

To convince herself that she should throw away the rest of her sanity in a last-ditch effort to make a better world.

For now, the best place for a fucked-up Max was this fucked-up world.

One that felt, increasingly, less fucked-up, the more time she spent in it.

Maybe this is what the universe was trying to tell her, all of this time.

Maybe this is what she deserved.

She’d get some lunch with Victoria and try to put this out of her mind, for now.

\---

This supply closet was fucking cramped.

But that was okay.

That just meant there was nowhere for Victoria to run to.

Nowhere for her to squirm.

Nowhere for her to hide her moans, or dodge Max’s fingers or teeth.

This is how their relationship worked, now.

Max wasn’t sure if it was very healthy.

But she needed it.

She needed it more than anything else in her life, right now.

She needed to feel the flush on her own cheeks.

She needed the influx of distracting ideas.

She needed to hear Victoria say her name like that.

She needed to feel loved, afterwards.

She needed the reminder that everything was fine, that she was alive, and the world wasn’t going to end.

And the only time she could honestly believe everything was going well was in these intimate moments with Victoria.

When Max left little hickies for everyone to see.

When Victoria went down on her and rocked her world for a while.

When Max’s nails dug in enough to leave some marks.

When Victoria all-but demanded they try some new, hot idea.

When Max kissed forcefully enough to leave herself breathless.

When Victoria looked at her, like that.

Max wasn’t sure if it was very healthy.

But she needed it.

Victoria’s face and blush afterwards was kind of nice, too.

She could get used to seeing it more often.

\---

Max was upset at Chloe.

Max had tried to call her to get her into a casual kind of conversation.

So she could tell herself that she was making progress.

But Chloe immediately steered it into the years that Max had ignored her.

It felt unfair to Max, on some level.

Sure, she had ignored Chloe, but Chloe hadn’t tried to call _her_ , either.

Max was pretty fucking miserable back then but she would have picked up the fucking phone if Chloe was calling her.

It almost felt like some kind of game.

Like Chloe had intentionally not called her just to see if Max was going to, instead.

And if she didn’t, it’d prove some bullshit theory she would have invented.

It didn’t feel fair.

Max vocalized this, to some degree of coherency.

Chloe was quiet on the other end of the line for a little while.

And then got even more mad, accused Max of gas-lighting her, since _of course_ she tried to call, she tried to call every day for a month and ---

Max just sighed and rewound until the conversation didn’t happen, at all.

They’d stick to awkward texts, for now.

 

She couldn’t square what she knew with what Chloe said.

They both couldn’t be right.

Max trusted her memories on this, since they were far back enough to not be tainted by the bullshit time powers.

But she had a weird brainwave, while she was just stewing, looking at her phone.

This wasn’t the same phone she had, all of the way back in Arcadia.

Max gulped, and remembered, now.

_Fuck._

She had changed numbers when their family moved over.

They couldn’t keep their carrier and Max had grown out of her special plan for babies.

She was supposed to have called Chloe with her new number, to let her know about it.

But she never called Chloe.

_Fuck._

 

Max had a new goal, if she went back in time far enough.

Chloe didn’t ignore her for years.

Chloe just needed her number.

Max was less upset at Chloe, now.

This problem was fixable.

\---

Nathan didn’t talk to her much.

So it was unusual when he sat down next to her, one day.

Max’s time here should have ended last week.

But she went to another Vortex Club party, instead.

She drank until she forgot about everything.

She was selfish.

She enjoyed Victoria.

She enjoyed the party.

She enjoyed herself.

Max mostly tried to put the decision out of her mind, now.

The picture was still in her jeans.

It wouldn’t let her forget.

That she still had some fighting left to do.

Nathan looked around.

They were outside the steps of the dorms, but it was early in the morning.

No one was around.

Max liked watching the sunrise and sunsets.

It was one of the little pleasures she extracted out of a world that had no storms.

He sighed.

“I know about your powers.”

He said, flatly, off to the distance more than to Max, apparently.

Max kept her composure, and considered rewinding to avoid this conversation.

But she could at least see how it was going to play out.

“Yeah?”

He nodded and looked to her.

He took a sip of his drink.

The sun wasn’t even fully up yet, and he was drinking.

Maybe he never went to sleep.

Maybe his night never ended.

Maybe Max’s nightmare never did, either.

“As part of the plan to take down Jefferson. The …”

He tried to find the right words,

“Other, Max, I guess, showed me your journal. The note that _you_ left to her, explaining everything. It’s how I know I could trust her. Jefferson had been planning that shit for months, and ain’ _no-one_ knew about it but me and him.”

He sighed.

“We had a system. She’d call me ‘Nate’, since I don’t let just fuckin’ anybody shorten my name, and that would be my little clue to know when she was gone.”

Max looked forward to the sun rising.

For some reason, she had never thought to check her own journal.

For some reason, the news wasn’t really troubling to her.

She just felt nothing.

“Oh.”

Max tried to think back to the conversations she had had with him.

How long did he know?

Did he know that Native Max was gone when she asked him about Jefferson?

Was his reaction denial?

Maybe this is why he was distrustful of her ever since she came into the timeline.

“Oh? That’s all you fuckin’ got? Oh?”

Max frowned, slightly, and sighed.

“I’ve been kind of numb to this whole thing.”

She hesitated, and looked to him.

Maybe she could tell him.

She could rewind if it went poorly.

“Well, maybe not entirely numb. These powers are making me insane, Nathan. I can’t even remember who I am, anymore.”

He frowned as well.

She couldn’t read his facial expression.

He took another long swig of his drink.

Then,

“So what’a’ya gonna do? Everything you said you wanted to do in your journal is done.”

Max sighed.

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

This was the truth. The only way she could stay here was by not thinking about how horribly fucking selfish it was.

He laughed.

She frowned.

He shook his head.

“Damn if I don’t know what that’s fuckin’ like. Alright. Fine. So long as you’re cool during our parties, you’re still cool with me.”

He looked down to his bottle, and back at her.

“Just keep Vic happy, alright? She deserves someone in her life.”

Max sighed again and slumped down.

There’s someone else who deserved someone in their life.

Nathan was already getting up to walk away.

Max turned her head around.

She had to know.

“Nathan … Chloe?”

He stopped cold in his tracks, and looked back to her.

There was a viciousness in his eyes that she wasn’t too familiar with.

It made her shiver, briefly.

It reminded her of other timelines when they were enemies.

“What do you want with that bitch? She hasn’t come to me for money. I didn’t do shit to her.”

Max frowned.

“You didn’t do anything at all?”

He crossed his arms and turned around fully.

“The _fuck_ did she say to you?”

Max stood up to face him fully, as well.

“That you raped her.”

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

“Nothin’ the bitch didn’t deserve. She’s been trying to blackmail my drug habit for weeks.”

Max was surprised he didn’t immediately disengage.

She must have done something, somehow, to earn his trust, just in this conversation.

He grumbled.

“I didn’t get to do nothin’, anyway. I just scared her so she’d learn her fuckin’ lesson about messing with people. So she’d leave me the _fuck_ alone for once.”

Or maybe this wasn’t trust.

Maybe this was just him trying to make Max see it like he did, so this action wouldn’t be a problem within his own social circle.

Did Victoria know?

After a few seconds of consideration, Nathan made an angry kind of frustrated sound.

It sounded like a whine, but it was too loud, too high-pitched, too guttural.

This conversation was unbalancing him.

His posture changed.

He lunged one side of his body forward, probably without thinking too much about it.

“Ngh – now, if she’s trying to spread some _shit_ around ---“

Max sighed, sat back down, and rewound time.

She didn’t like playing people for info.

Not anymore.

Nathan, however, she was just fine playing for info.

One of her new goals for this perfect timeline was to prevent Nathan from doing anything like that to Chloe.

So she had to know why he was upset at Chloe to begin with.

As far as Nathan was aware, this conversation ended after he walked away.

 

She texted Chloe to say she was sorry for not trusting her about Nathan.

Max didn’t even care if she didn’t believe it or if it came too little, too late.

It was as much to sate her own fucking guilt as it was some kind of attempt to appease Chloe.

Max considered going back to Victoria’s room to do some homework or get her ready for some early-morning fun.

Anything was better than thinking about this time bullshit.

So she did.

She was getting better at distracting it out of her mind, somehow.

\---

Max felt genuinely happy for the first time, in a long while.

Chloe had sent her a text.

They’d been tense conversational partners for a few weeks, now.

Max could tell Chloe wasn’t trusting her, and probably wasn’t going to, ever.

But they weren’t enemies.

And Max breathed so much easier at night with the knowledge that she was doing what she could to make Chloe’s life a bit less miserably unfair.

This happy-inducing text was actually pretty short and simple.

Chloe needed money to fix up her truck, then she wanted to take Max on a quick road trip.

A sort of way to patch things over.

She said she’d be able to see if Max could be her friend again, somehow, after all of this.

It’d take a little while to do the repairs to her truck, but still, it was something.

Something more than she had yesterday.

All of the little something mores added up, eventually.

\---

“You’re smiling.”

Victoria tried to keep her voice from sounding too amused.

But it was pretty cute to see Max perched on her bed, smiling like an idiot.

She was looking at a photo, but it was a different kind of photo.

Not the kind of photos that made Max sad and distant.

“I still can’t believe you got this shot, Victoria. It looks amazing.”

They had decided to get some fresh air, a little while ago, and spent a weekend camping in the wilderness to get some good nature photos.

Victoria was kind of whatever about nature photography, but it was something of a blind spot in her portfolio.

And she could already hear her father prattling on about _balance balance balance_ when it came to these things.

Victoria also wasn’t a kind of person to _show_ her physical exertion much.

It wasn’t so much that she minded being a little sweaty and sticky, but she just didn’t want to anyone to see it.

That’s why she ran so early in the morning, usually before the sun had even fully finished getting up.

But this was different.

Max was different.

She wasn’t going to judge her for not looking amazing.

Max wanted to be with her during that shoot.

Like she said.

If she wanted to be somewhere else, she had literal magic powers to let her do that.

Yet she chose to be here.

A month or two past when she said she would re-evaluate things.

Max wanted to be here.

With her.

And that meant something.

“You have some pretty good shots from there, too.”

Max looked up from the photo, and smiled contently.

“Yeah, I know, but. Catching a fish jumping out of a stream?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“The person who can literally control time is impressed by coincidence of timing. How’s that for some irony.”

Max hesitated for a few seconds.

“I don’t think that’s what irony means.”

Victoria frowned.

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what irony means.”

Max sighed and put the photo down.

“No, like, there has to be a situation where …”

Victoria carefully twirled her finger in a circle as Max slowly made the connection.

Max knew better than to fight Victoria on these particular things, anyway.

“Fuck, whatever.”

Max gave up with a half-frustrated sigh.

Victoria just beamed happily.

She let Max pout for a bit, since that was pretty cute, too, and continued.

“Anyway, I like your portfolio much better. Some cutesy shots of fishes does not a good portfolio make.”

Max nodded, slowly, moving one of her hands over to flick through her own portfolio.

She had Victoria’s on her other side.

Victoria had been carefully sitting on her chair, sideways, with her legs crossed, and an arm resting on the backrest of her chair.

“I’ve been building up mine for years, though. You said you only started making yours a year or two ago, right?”

Victoria hummed thoughtfully.

“Something like that.”

Max sighed contently.

“So you’ve been making really good progress in that time, then.”

Victoria smiled.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

\---

Max was treading water, in all of this.

Sometimes she could keep her head above it, and not think too much about her past.

Sometimes she couldn’t.

Sometimes she’d have a bad conversation with Chloe.

Sometimes she’d see some self-doubt in Victoria.

Sometimes she’d be reminded of how miserably unfair all of this was.

And get angry. 

Sometimes she’d get stuck thinking about the photo she still kept around.

Just in case everything went poorly.

She had her plan, now.

It was fully baked in her mind.

She would go back to Seattle.

She’d make a point of telling her parents she really wanted to go to the other school.

She’d text Chloe her new number.

Then, as the peaceful nothingness consumed her, she’d just make a simple prayer.

She didn’t want to come back.

She didn’t want to ruin whatever this Max would have.

She would stop fucking with time, and she would stop creating so much suffering in the world.

She wouldn’t lose her last grip on reality.

She wouldn’t lose the last of her precious memories.

She’d just stop existing, entirely.

She wasn’t even sure that was how the rules worked.

Do you get to ask favors of the bullshit gods that gave you your bullshit powers?

But she had nothing left to try.

At first, it was kind of a miserably sad thought.

It was weird to ponder her own existence, like that.

But maybe the only way to truly have a perfect world is to have a world where she wasn’t in it.

Maybe her sacrifice would be enough to ensure perfection, at least.

It was a peaceful thought, eventually.

 

She had another thought, these days, too.

Like everything else in her life, it was in conflict with the other thoughts.

Maybe the only way to have a truly perfect world was to just keep working at it.

Not through time-travel shenanigans and playing this weird game of cosmic chess against the universe and Mr. Jefferson.

But just by honestly working on her relationships.

She thought it was impossible, earlier, to find some way to forget about all of the adversity she faced in her life.

She thought it was impossible, earlier, to reconcile her attraction to two people.

And her overwhelming guilt that at least one of them would end up screwed, somehow.

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

It was never really going anywhere, but.

It was getting easier to deal with.

Some days she felt like she was underwater.

But every week, she felt like she was a little bit more buoyant overall.

A bit harder to knock down.

A bit harder to drown.

Max wasn’t even entirely sure it was selfish to stay in this timeline, anymore.

Maybe another version of her, in another universe, had already split.

Maybe That Max already worked out how to make Chloe happy and alive, without sacrificing the town.

Maybe Chloe was getting better at keeping her head above water, too.

Increasingly, Max thought of her future, and all of what might happen, there.

Maybe Max just being what she could to Chloe was enough to get her to stop from taking on water.

Maybe Max was just lying to herself to justify the whole thing.

But it was easier to believe with every day.

Victoria’s blush, the parties, and a little bit of alcohol here and there, helped, too.

\---

Max almost drowned, one day.

She had a text from Chloe.

It was short, and simple.

_sorry_

That’s all it said.

Max tried to call her.

The line was disconnected.

Max felt her anger flare up, but she was trying to control it better, these days.

She made her way to the Price household.

Chloe’s truck was gone, and a lot of the stuff was out of her room.

Joyce said Chloe was planning a cross-country trip.

Max frowned.

Chloe had to lied to her, apparently.

Chloe said she wanted the money to fix her truck up, and then as soon as it was fixed, they’d go on a quick trip to try and see if they could rekindle anything.

No part of that was cross-country.

And it involved Max.

Joyce just sighed and invited her in for a glass of water.

Max eventually came to the conclusion that Chloe had used her.

The realization was so painful, she ended up in a kind of shock for the rest of the day.

Was Chloe planning on this all along?

Is this all she thought about when she saw Max, sad, and remorseful, all of that time ago?

Just a way to get her out of financial straits?

They never really got close again after that conversation, but.

They could at least talk.

Max thought that they were making some kind of progress, somehow.

She was in a stupor as she made it back to Blackwell.

Victoria found her staring at that damn photo, again.

In their room.

“Max …”

Max carefully looked up from it.

She figured she should probably be feeling something, right now, but she was numb, again.

“Victoria.”

It came out as a sigh.

“Are you okay?”

Max shook her head.

“No. Chloe gave up on me and cut me out of her life for good. She went on a cross-country trip.”

Victoria frowned, slightly.

“I thought you said she was going to take you on a little trip as soon as her truck was fixed.”

Max sighed.

“I thought so too.”

Victoria flinched.

“Oh.”

Max nodded, gloomily.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’.”

Victoria sighed and came to sit down right next to Max.

Max spent quite a lot of time on Victoria’s bed. To the point it was just their bed, now.

Victoria carefully wrapped an arm around her to rub at her opposite shoulder.

“I heard the rumors that Rachel was in LA. If you said she’s still not really over her, that’s probably where she went.”

Max sighed.

“So what? She doesn’t want me in her life anymore. I fucked up.”

Victoria nodded, slowly.

“She doesn’t want you in her life, _right now_. But your life is just starting, isn’t it?’

Max pursed her lips.

She considered for a few moments, and grumbled.

“What are you saying?”

Victoria hummed, thoughtfully.

“That you’ve already done all you can. The ball isn’t in your court, anymore. Look at how much you’ve already done to yourself to keep her alive.”

Max looked down to herself, and turned her hands around to look at her palms.

She groaned.

Victoria must have been thinking about what to say if Max got into one of these down periods again since this was way too practiced.

“And you’re considering doing even more harm for a _possible_ shot that she might _possibly_ work out a _bit_ better.”

Max nodded, slowly.

“But I can do it right, this time. If I go back to Seattle, and then I ---“

“When have you thought you couldn’t do it right?”

Max blinked.

“What?”

Victoria hesitated for just a second or two.

“Did you ever do a photo-jump thinking everything wouldn’t turn out perfectly, somehow?”

Max made a frustrated whine.

Eventually,

“No …”

Max then made an even more frustrated sound and shoved herself way away from Victoria.

This wasn’t fair.

She said she wouldn’t do this.

“I hate you.”

Victoria flinched.

“You said months ago that you wouldn’t guilt-trip me if I wanted to leave. Well. That’s exactly what you’re fucking doing right now.”

Max could feel her anger coming back from how unfair it all was, again.

This decision was already impossibly difficult and she’d already been considering it for months.

She didn’t need Victoria making it even more of an agonizing one.

She knew her breathing was a little unsteady, just like her voice.

Her arms were crossed.

She wasn’t looking at Victoria.

Max hated it when she got angry.

Even the numbness was better.

Her anger always left her feeling drained. Sometimes emotionally, sometimes physically, sometimes both.

Victoria sighed, wearily.

“If you’ve already made up your mind, then I’ll just shut up and be quiet. But I have the feeling that if you already made up your mind, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, right now.”

Max didn’t say anything to that.

She knew Victoria was right and she fucking hated it.

She dug her nails into her skin until it hurt and she knew she fucking hated it.

But then she closed her eyes, and breathed out, severely.

“What would you have me do, Victoria?”

Max's voice felt drained, now. Her anger was leaving her.

Victoria bit her lip.

“You know what I want you to do. I want you to stay in the only place you’ve had some peace and quiet.”

Victoria’s voice suddenly became quiet, and thoughtful.

“We can go to LA in a few years and see if Chloe’s still around. She might have cooled down enough, by then, to want to reconnect.”

Max blinked a few times.

They had never really discussed their future, like that.

Not being together, anyway.

Victoria sounded like she had been thinking of it, though.

Max didn’t want to admit that she had been, as well.

It felt too selfish.

She felt her remaining anger bleed out of her, until she just slumped against Victoria.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

 

Max could be selfish, for today.

Maybe for this week.

Maybe for longer.

 

Max never let go of the photo, though.

Every night, she looked at it.

She watched it shimmer.

 

She thought of her plan.

Maybe someday, she’d go through with it.

But not today.

 

Maybe, in some other universe, Max already did.

Maybe she was the Max who decided to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ending was meant to be a bit more open than some of my other stuff. I know it's not exactly the happiest of things, but there's something oddly endearing to me about the bittersweet note it ended on. Life isn't perfect, but it doesn't have to be, sometimes.
> 
> You can read it as a prequel to the [Seattle-verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/557492) if you wanted to, or not. Or both, at once. Time travel is confusing like that, yo.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment - I love talking about these kinds of things.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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